"B^Sll 


5^5 


OCT  7  19' 
THE 

ORIGIN   AND   CHARACTER 

OF 

THE   BIBLE 

AND   ITS   PLACE  AMONG   SACRED  BOOKS 

BY  y 

JABEZ   THOMAS    SUNDERLAND 

Author  of 

"THE     SPARK     IN     THE     CLOD  "     (RELIGION     AND     EVOLUTION) 
"  TRAVEL    AND    LIFE    IN    PALESTINE,"     ETC. 


BEING  A  REVISED  AND    ENLARGED    EDITION   OF  "THE    BIBLE 

ITS  ORIGIN,   GROWTH,   AND   CHARACTER,"  BROUGHT  UP 

TO    DATE    IN    EVERY     PARTICULAR,    WITH    MUCH 

FRESH    MATTER    ADDED,   INCLUDING    A    NEW 

INTRODUCTION,  SEVERAL  NEW   CHAPTERS 

ILLUSTRATIVE  CHARTS  AND  TABLES 

LIST   OF   BOOKS    FOR    STUDY 

Etc. 


BOSTON 

THE    BEACON    PRESS 

25  BEACON  STREET 


Copyright,  i8g3,  1908 
By  Jabez  Thomas  Sunderland 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


'  Slowly  the  Bible,  of  the  race  is  writ. 

And  not  on  paper  leaves,  nor  leaves  of  stone; 

Each  age,  each  kindred,  adds  a  verse  to  it, 
Texts  of  despair  or  hope  or  joy  or  moan : 

Still  at  the  prophet' s  feet  the  nations  sitT 

Lowell. 


INTRODUCTION. 

A  NEW  view  of  the  Bible,  a  distinctly  **  modern  "  view,  is 
making  its  appearance  in  Christendom,  and  tending  slowly 
to  displace  the  **  old  view  "  which  has  been  held  so  unques- 
tioningly  and  so  long.  The  change  has  not  been  sought  of 
planned  by  anybody ;  it  is  simply  coming  about  as  the  result 

—  a  result  which  nobody  seems  able  to  stop  or  hinder  —  of 
the  greatly  enlarged  knowledge  of  the  modern  world. 

The  object  of  the  present  book  is  to  set  forth  as  clearly, 
definitely,  and  comprehensively  as  possible  —  it  is  hoped 
also  candidly  and  fairly  —  this  Modern  View  of  the  BibUy 

—  what  it  is,  reasons  for  it,  and  its  results  so  far  as  they 
can  be  traced  or  foreseen. 

Let  me  be  more  specific.  Perhaps  there  is  no  subject 
of  more  Hving  or  more  urgent  interest  now  before  the 
reHgious  world  than  that  of  the  "Higher  Biblical  Criticism" 
and  its  consequences. 

What  is  the  Bible?  Is  it  such  a  book  as  for  some 
centuries  Christian  nations  have  believed  it  to  be?  Or  is 
it  something  very  different?  What  has  an  honest,  inde- 
pendent, and  competent  biblical  scholarship  —  a  scholarship 
which  investigates  thoroughly  so  as  to  find  out  the  facts, 
and  then  speaks  in  the  interest,  not  of  any  church  or  party 
or  any  form  of  theological  dogmatism,  but  of  truth  —  to 
tell  us  about  the  Bible,  —  as  to  its  origin,  its  authorship,  its 


vi  INTRODUCTION. 

growth,  the  circumstances  under  which  it  arose,  the  causes 
which  produced  it,  its  relation  to  God,  its  relation  to  men, 
its  inspiration,  the  changes  which  its  various  writings  have 
undergone,  its  rehabihty,  its  place  among  the  sacred  books 
of  mankind,  its  transitory  elements,  its  enduring  elements, 
its  permanent  value? 

The  following  pages  are  an  endeavor  to  answer  all  these 
questions,  frankly,  without  evasion,  reverently,  and  with  as 
much  fullness  and  detail  as  the  space  at  command  will 
permit. 

This  volume  in  its  present  form  is  in  a  sense  an  evolution. 
The  beginning  of  the  evolution  was  a  small  book,  less  than 
one  half  the  size  of  the  present  work,  entitled,  What  is 
the  Bible  f  published  by  the  Putnams  of  New  York.  This 
met  with  so  much  public  favor  that  it  soon  seemed  best 
to  rewrite  and  enlarge  it,  thus  making  it  much  wider  in  its 
scope.  The  result  was  the  first  edition  of  The  Bible:  Its 
Origin^  Growth,  and  CharacteVy  and  Its  Place  among  the 
Sacred  Books  of  the  Worlds  published  also  by  the  Putnams. 
The  present  volume  is  that  work  carefully  revised  through- 
out and  still  further  enlarged,  and  (as  the  author  believes) 
in  every  particular  brought  up  to  date,  so  as  to  embody  the 
results  of  the  best  and  latest  biblical  scholarship.  The 
following  important  additions  have  been  made: 

1.  A  new  Introduction. 

2.  A  Table  of  Dates  of  Biblical  Literature,  showing  the 
Literary  Evolution  of  the  Bible. 

3.  A  Table  of  Dates  of  important  Historical  Events, 
biblical  and  contemporaneous. 

4.  A  Chart,  classifying  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  showing  the  various  Canons  and  the  true 
Chronological  Order  of  the  Books. 


INTRODUCTION.  vii 

5.  A  Chart,  classifying  the  Literature  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  showing  the  Chronological  Order  of  the  Books. 

6.  A  New  classified  List  of  Books  for  Biblical  Reading 
and  Study. 

7.  Many  additions  to  the  Text  and  Notes  in  various 
parts  of  the  body  of  the  book. 

8.  Four  New  Chapters  (Chapters  16,  20,  21,  and  23) 
on  the  following  subjects: 

(i)  ♦'  The  Old  Testament  Apocryphal  Books." 

(2)  "  Translations.     Giving  the  Bible  to  the  People." 

(3)  "  Our  English  Bible." 

(4)  "  Religious  Evolution :  A  Historical  Summary." 
Is  there  any  subject  regarding  which  men  and  women  in 

our  day  more  need  to  make  themselves  intelligent  than 
regarding  the  Bible?  Is  there  any  other  subject  of  impor- 
tance concerning  which  so  many  persons,  otherwise  intelli- 
gent, permit  themselves  to  remain  unintelligent?  Is  this  as 
it  ought  to  be?  Is  not  want  of  intelHgence  regarding  such 
a  book  as  the  Bible  a  calamity,  not  only  to  the  persons 
immediately  concerned,  but  to  society  at  large  and  to  the 
cause  of  religion  ? 

The  Bible  is  our  greatest  book.  Knowledge  of  it  and  about 
it  is  indispensable.  Nothing  can  take  its  place  or  make  up 
for  its  loss.  But  it  must  be  real  knowledge.  The  supposed 
knowledge  of  fifty  years  ago  will  not  do.  There  has  been 
as  much  advance  in  biblical  scholarship  during  the  past  two 
generations  as  in  physical  science.  To  cling  to  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  Bible  held  by  our  fathers  shows  as  much 
ignorance  and  blindness  as  to  cling  to  the  geology  or 
chemistry  of  our  fathers. 

"  They  must  upward  still  and  onward 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  truth.'* 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

The  work  of  the  great  biblical  scholars  of  the  past  century, 
and  of  the  present  day,  can  no  more  be  ignored  than  can 
the  work  of  the  great  scholars  in  any  other  important 
department  of  human  knowledge.  If  we  do  not  have  a 
"  new  Bible "  we  at  least  have  the  old  Bible  completely 
transformed.  Nor  is  the  transformation  for  the  worse,  but 
vastly  for  the  better.  We  lose  fictions,  but  we  gain  realities. 
The  Bible  becomes  a  natural  book,  instead  of  an  unnatural. 
It  becomes  a  book  that  we  can  understand,  instead  of  an 
enigma.  It  falls  into  relation  now  with  all  the  rest  of  man's 
knowledge  and  experience,  instead  of  being  an  anomaly. 
It  becomes  more  than  ever  a  world-book,  because  seen  to 
be  so  truly  a  human  book.  The  religion  it  teaches  becomes 
larger  and  richer,  as  well  as  more  ethical  and  infinitely  more 
reasonable.  God's  character  is  relieved  of  much  which 
under  the  old  view  marred  and  blackened  it;  for  now  we 
see  that  much  which  we  had  regarded  as  from  God  is  only 
from  very  imperfect  men.  Thus  God  is  made  more  worthy 
of  our  worship  ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  is  brought  nearer 
to  us,  because  he  is  seen  to  achieve  his  great  ends  by  normal 
not  by  abnormal  methods. 

Inspiration  ceases  to  be  a  thing  of  the  past  alone,  con- 
fined to  thirty  or  forty  chosen  men  of  ancient  Palestine, 
and  is  seen  to  be  as  continuous  and  as  universal  as  the 
influence  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  of  Truth;  as  the  speaking 
of  the  Divine  Voice  through  the  reason  and  conscience  of 
man ;  as  the  shining  of  that  "  Light  which  lighteth  every 
man  coming  into  the  world."  Revelation  is  no  longer  a 
little  and  local  thing,  or  a  thing  dead,  bound  up  and  sealed 
in  a  single  ancient  volume.  Now  it  becomes  something  liv- 
ing, perennial ;  something  growing  with  man's  capacity  to 
understand  and  to  reason ;   something  as  large  as  all  truth. 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

"  Out  of  the  heart  of  Nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old; 
The  litanies  of  nations  came, 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 
Up  from  the  burning  core  below,  — 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe. 


The  word  unto  the  prophet  spoken 
Was  writ  on  tables  yet  unbroken ; 
The  word  by  seers  or  sibyls  told, 
In  groves  of  oak,  or  fanes  of  gold. 
Still  floats  upon  the  morning  wind, 
Still  whispers  to  the  willing  mind. 
One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
This  heedless  world  hath  never  lost.' 


In  the  light  of  the  new  biblical  scholarship  we  are  learning 
that  God's  real  method  of  rev^elation  is  evolution ;  that  his 
way  of  revealing  the  divine  to  man  is  through  the  evolution 
or  awakening  of  the  divine  in  man.  In  other  words,  we 
are  finding  out  that  the  religion  of  the  Hebrew  people  in 
Palestine  was  quite  the  most  remarkable  religious  and 
ethical  evolution  of  the  ancient  world,  and  that  the  Bible 
is  the  literary  product  and  record  of  that  evolution. 

This  does  not  mean  that  either  the  Bible  or  its  religion 
is  less  divine  than  the  past  has  believed  ;  rather  it  means 
that  the  truly  and  really  divine  is  larger,  and  its  ways  are 
larger,  than  has  been  understood.  As  man  and  the  world 
are  not  less  from  God  because  they  came  by  the  path  of 
evolution,  so  the  great  truths  of  the  Bible  are  not  less  from 
God  because  they  entered  man's  thought  and  life  through 
the  development  of  his  own  powers,  through  his  own  deep 
experiences  and  hence  his  own  spiritual  growth,  through 
centuries  of  moral  struggle,  of  battling  with  his  lower  self, 
of  aspirations  after  that  which  was  above  and  beyond  him, 
of  gropings  —  often  blind  and  painful,  but  never  wholly 
fruitless  —  after  truth  and  right  and  God. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PAGE 

The  Place  of  the  Bible  among  the  Sacred  Books  of  the 

World i 

CHAPTER   n. 
Similarities  between  the  Bible  and  Other  Sacred  Books    .      17 

CHAPTER   III. 
The  Hebrew  Land  and  People 34 

CHAPTER   IV. 
The  Bible  as  Literature , 44 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Pentateuch  :  Was  it  Written  by  Moses  ? 59 

CHAPTER  VL 
The  Pentateuch:  Its  Composite  Character  and  Real  Origin      69 

CHAPTER  VIL 

Hebrew  Legend  and  History  :  Origin  of  the  Old  Testament 

Historical  Books 80 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Hebrew  Prophecy:  Origin  of  the  Old  Testament  Prophet- 
ical Books 93 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   IX. 

PAGE 

Hebrew   Poetry:   Origin    of   the  Old  Testament  Poetical 

Books io6 

CHAPTER  X. 
The  Gospels:  Their  Origin  and  Character. —  i 119 

CHAPTER  XI. 
The  Gospels:  Their  Origin  and  Character.  — 11 127 

CHAPTER   XII. 
Paul  and  the  Book  of  Acts 136 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Epistles  of  Paul i44 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Non-Pauline  Epistles  and  the  Revelation 154 

CHAPTER   XV. 
Excluded  Literature 164 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
The  Old  Testament  Apocryphal  Books i73 

CHAPTER   XVII. 

The  Formation  of   the  Canon  :  The  Old  Testament  ;   The 

New  Testament 190 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 

The    Old    and    New   Testament   Text:    Its  Formation  and 

Preservation.  —  i 202 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

PAGE 

The   Old   and   New  Testament   Text:    Its    Formation    and 

Preservation.  —  ii 215 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Translations:  Giving  the  Bible  to  the  People 222 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Our  English  Bible 231 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
The  Moral  and  Religious  Progress  Traceable  in  the  Bible    239 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Religious  Evolution  :  A  Historical  Summary 251 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Bible  Infallibility  in  the  Light  of  Modern  Scholarship.  —  \.    258 

CHAPTER   XXV. 

Bible  Infallibility  in  the  Light  of  Modern  Scholarship. —  il    273 

CHAPTER  XXVL 
The  Bible  and  Inspiration 288 

CHAPTER  XXVIL 
The  Permanent  Value  of  the  Bible 297 

List  of  Books  for  Biblical  Study  and  Reading 307 

INDEX 317 


Xiv  CONTENTS. 

TABLES  AND   CHARTS 

PAGE 

A  Table  of  Dates  of  Important  Historical  Events,  Biblical 

AND  Other 38 

A  Table   of    Dates   of    Biblical    Literature,  showing    the 

Literary  Evolution  of  the  Bible    .    .    .    . 58 

A  Chart,  classifying  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament 

AND  showing  the  VARIOUS  CaNONS  AND  THE  TRUE  CHRONO- 
LOGICAL Order  of  the  Books 68 

A  Chart,  classifying  the  Literature  of  the  New  Testament 

AND    SHOWING    THE    TrUE    CHRONOLOGICAL    OrDER    OF    THE 

Books 126 


THE    BIBLE 


ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH  OF 
THE   BIBLE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  PLACE   OF  THE  BIBLE   AMONG  THE    SACRED   BOOKS 
OF    THE   WORLD. 

The  Bible  as  a  Sacred  Book.— To  the  question, 
What  is  our  Bible  ?  scholarship  makes,  among  others,  this 
broad  answer:  It  is  one  of  the  great  sacred  books  or 
Bibles  of  mankind.  The  general  verdict  of  scholars  of 
widest  knowledge  is,  that,  taken  all  in  all,  it  is  superior 
to  any  of  the  others.  But,  however  much  it  may  tower 
above  the  rest,  it  is  clearly  one  of  a  catalogue  that  includes 
them  as  well  as  it. 

What  are  the  other  great  Bibles  of  mankind?  The 
most  conspicuous  are — 

1.  The  Vedas  of  the  Brahmans; 

2.  The  Tripitaka  of  the  Buddhists ; 

3.  The  Avesta  (or  Zend-Avesta)  of  the  Parsees  or  Per- 
sians ;  V 

4.  The  Five  Kings,  or  Chinese  Sacred  Books  of  Con- 
fucius ; 

5.  The  Tao-te-king,  or  Chinese  Sacred  Book  of  Lao- 
tse; 

6.  The  Mohammedan  Koran. 

There  have  been,  and  are,  other  sacred  books  in  the 
world  besides  these ;  these,  however,  are   probably  the 


2  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

most  important.  Not  to  speak  of  the  less  notable  sacred 
literature  now  in  existence,  such  as  the  Upanishads  and 
Laws  of  Manu  among  the  Hindus,  it  is  known  that  the 
ancient  Egyptians  possessed  sacred  volumes;  and  one 
of  them — the  Book  of  the  Dead — has  been  brought  to 
light,  if  not  entire,  at  least  in  considerable  part.^  In 
Babylonia  and  Assyria,  too,  important  fragments  of  what 
possibly  may  be  called  a  sacred  literature  have  been  dis- 
covered.2  The  Greeks  have  not  left  us  anything  which 
we  can  properly  call  a  sacred  book.  The  poems  of 
Homer  are  great  national  epics,  but  they  have  never 
received  that  "  general  recognition  or  sanction,  which 
alone,"  as  Max  Miiller  says,  "  can  impart  a  sacred  or 
canonical  character."  Whatever  the  Celts,  the  Germans, 
and  the  Slavs  may  have  possessed  of  sacred  traditions 
about  their  gods  and  heroes,  having  been  handed  down 
by  oral  tradition  chiefly,  has  perished  beyond  all  hope  of 
recovery.  Some  portions  of  the  Eddas  alone  give  us  an 
idea  of  what  the  religious  and  heroic  poetry  of  the  Scan- 
dinavians may  have  been.  So  that  I  speak  with  suf- 
ficient accuracy,  perhaps,  when  I  name  as  the  more 
important  sacred  books  or  Bibles  of  the  world — the 
Brahman  Bible,  the  Buddhist  Bible,  the  Persian  or  Zoro- 

*  See  Tide's  "  History  of  the  Egyptian  Religion,"  chap.  ii.  ;  Renouf's 
•'Religion  of  Egypt"  (Hibbert  Lectures  for  1879),  lee.  v.  ;  Rawlinson's 
"Ancient  Egypt,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  140-144. 

"^  The  remarkable  religious  hymns  of  the  ancient  Assyrians  (received  by 
them  possibly  from  the  still  earlier  Sumerians)  present  some  striking  resem- 
blances to  the  Hebrew  Psalms.  They  were  gathered  into  a  collection  for 
ritualistic  purposes,  and  seem  to  have  been  regarded  as  inspired.  Lenor- 
mant  compares  them  with  the  Hindu  Rig-Veda.  See  Ency.  Brit.,  vol.  iii,, 
art.  "  Babylonia,"  p.  191.  Also,  for  fuller  information,  see  Sayce's 
"  Relig^ion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians"  (Hibbert  Lectures  for  1887),  and 
••Records  of  the  Past." 


PLACE   OF   TH£  BIBLE  AMONG  SACRED  BOOKS,        3 

astrian  Bible,  the  two  Chinese  Bibles,  the  Mohammedan 
Bible  ;  and,  added  to  these,  the  Jewish  Bible  (our  Old 
Testament),  and  the  Christian  Bible  (our  Old  and  New 
Testaments). 

Sacred  books  or  Bibles  come  into  being  naturally.  They 
are  a  necessary  and  inevitable  outgrowth  of  the  religious 
nature  of  man.  They  may  be  divided  into  two  classes. 
The  first  class  embraces  those  sacred  books  which  spring 
out  of  the  general  life  of  a  race  or  people,  and  which 
therefore  are  likely  to  be  of  a  more  or  less  uncertain 
authorship,  and  to  rest  upon  a  background  of  legend 
and  myth.  The  second  class  is  made  up  of  those  books 
which  spring  directly  from  some  great  religious  leader  or 
prophet,  and  usually  within  historic  time. 

(i.)  Sacred  Books  which  grow  out  of  the  General 
Life  of  a  People. — In  the  early  times  of  a  people,  before 
they  have  a  literature,  and  even  before  they  have  writ- 
ing, there  always  come  into  existence  great  numbers  of 
legends  and  stories,  about  wars,  calamities,  striking  and 
mysterious  events  (as  floods,  earthquakes,  the  supposed 
creation  of  the  world),  about  ancestors,  kings,  heroes, 
persons  supposed  to  enjoy  great  favor  with  the  gods. 
The  more  notable  of  these  stories  will  be  told  from 
family  to  family,  from  tribe  to  tribe,  from  generation 
to  generation,  and  hence  in  the  course  of  ages  will  be- 
come the  heritage  of  a  whole  race.  As  rude  instruments 
of  music  are  invented,  and  as  the  people  gain  the  ability 
to  sing  or  chant,  these  legends  and  tales  will  tend  more 
or  less  to  assume  material  forms. 

When  at  length  the  people  arrive  at  that  condition  of 
civilization  in  which  writing  makes  its  appearance,  it  is, 
of  course,  those  hymns,  ballads,  and  legends  that  are 
usually  embalmed  in  writing  first — these,  and  also  sim- 


4  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

pie  magical  formulas,  directions  for  incantations,  forms 
of  prayers  to  the  gods,  and  regulations  for  religious  rites, 
all  of  which  spring  into  being  equally  naturally,  equally 
gradually,  and  often  equally  early.  All  these,  because 
they  come  down  from  revered  ancestors,  and  have  the 
halo  of  a  shadowy  past  about  them,  are  naturally  looked 
upon  as  peculiarly  sacred.  These  become  the  germ  of 
the  future  sacred  book  or  Bible.  As  ages  go  on,  other 
writings  come  into  being,  of  one  kind  and  another,  some 
of  which  are  of  necessity  religious  or  semi-religious,  and 
some  very  likely  ethical.  By  a  sort  of  natural  selection, 
the  best  of  these,  or  such  as  meet  with  most  popular 
favor,  or  are  most  in  harmony  with  the  religious  feeling 
and  sentiment  of  the  people,  are  preserved,  and  grow  in 
honor ;  while  the  rest  sink  into  obscurity  or  disappear 
altogether.  Those  that  have  thus  been  preserved  and 
lifted  up  into  honor,  as  time  passes  away  grow  venerable, 
and  by  and  by  are  added  to  the  earlier  sacred  literature  ; 
and  thus  the  Bible  grows.  These  additions  may  be  few 
or  many,  according  to  circumstances.  But  at  last  there 
comes  a  time,  as  a  result  of  national  disaster,  or  the  stag- 
nation of  intellectual  and  religious  life,  or  for  some  other 
cause,  when  a  line  gets  drawn,  and  the  sacred  book  gets 
sealed  up.  Anything  written  at  any  point  of  time  on 
this  side  the  line  is  not  true  Bible.  Such  is  in  brief  the 
history  of  the  origin  of  one  class  of  sacred  books  or 
Bibles.  As  prominent  in  this  class  we  readily  recognize 
the  Vedas,  indeed  nearly  all  the  sacred  literature  of  the 
Hindus,  and  our  own  Old  Testament. 

(2.)  Sacred  Books  which  originate  in  a  Man. — The 
second  class  of  sacred  books  spring  from  a  person,  A 
great  religious  teacher  appears  among  a  people,  makes 
a  profound  impression,  inaugurates  a  new  religious  move- 


PLACE   OF    THE  BIBLE  AMONG   SACRED  BOOKS.        5 

ment,  or,  if  you  please,  a  new  religion.  It  is  entirely 
natural  that  a  new  Bible  should  come  into  being  as  a 
result.  His  followers,  of  course,  desire  to  preserve  an 
account  of  his  life  and  a  record  of  his  teachings.  If  he 
himself  writes  a  book  or  a  series  of  books,  this  or  these 
will  constitute  the  Bible,  or  at  least  the  leading  and  most 
important  part  of  the  Bible.  If,  however,  he  does  not 
leave  behind  anything  written  by  himself,  then,  naturally, 
followers  and  admirers  of  him  write  out  and  preserve  a 
record  of  his  deeds  and  words  as  best  they  can,  and  these 
will  constitute  the  Bible,  or  the  beginning  of  it.  As 
Bibles  that  have  thus  had  their  origin  in  a  man,  we  name 
of  course  the  two  Bibles  of  China,  which  sprung  from 
Confucius  and  Lao-tse ;  the  Buddhist  Bible,  which  sprung 
from  Sakya-muni,  or  Buddha  ;  the  Koran,  which  came 
from  Mahomet  ;  and  the  New  Testament,  which  is  the 
outcome  of  the  life  of  Jesus.^ 

With  reference  to  the  great  Bibles  of  the  world,  in 
whichever  of  these  two  ways  they  may  have  had  their 
origin,  several  things  are  to  be  said. 

Time  brings  Sacredness. — Most  great  sacred  books, 

^  The  day  of  the  rise  of  new  religions  and  sacred  books  is  not  past.  Says 
Dr.  J.  H.  Allen  in  his  "Christian  History  "  (vol.  iii.,  p.  240):  "  Quite  within 
my  own  recollection,  all  the  conditions  have  been  found  for  the  rise  of  an 
historical  religion  in  at  least  four  cases,  and  I  know  not  how  many  more  : 
that  of  the  Mormons  and  Spiritists  in  America,  the  Bab  in  Persia,  and  the 
Brahmo  Somaj  in  India,  to  say  nothing  of  Comte's  '  Religion  of  Humanity,' 
or  the  revolutionary  faith  of  Socialism.  Probably  all  of  these  will  soon  be 
cnished  out  (if  they  have  not  been  already)  by  special  circumstances,  or 
else  absorbed  in  wider  faiths.  But  under  other  circumstances  either  of 
them  might  well  grow  to  be  historically  as  interesting,  if  not  so  important, 
as  Parseeism,  Buddhism,  or  Islam."  The  Mormons  have  their  sacred  book 
or  Bible  called  the  "  Book  of  Mormon,"  written  by  Joseph  Smith  about  1830. 
Also  the  new  Christian  Science  faith  has  its  sacred  book,  "  Science  and 
Health,"  written  by  Mrs.  Mary  G.  Baker  Eddy. 


O  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

SO  far  as  we  are  able  to  find  out,  have  acquired  their 
peculiar  sacredness  mainly  by  age.  The  only  excep- 
tions are  found  in  the  second  class — among  those  orig- 
inating in  a  great  religious  teacher.'  The  books  might 
have  been  much  prized  at  first,  or  they  might  not;  but 
all  thought  of  putting  them  into  a  category  by  them- 
selves, as  sacred  books,  was,  as  a  rule,  absent  at  first,  and 
only  arose  in  after  times  and  by  slow  degrees.  As  they 
grew  old  they  grew  sacred.  As  men  passed  on,  away 
from  the  times  and  circumstances  of  their  origin,  they 
came  by  degrees  to  think  of  that  origin  as  supernatural. 
The  reverence  that  began  to  surround  them  was  the  halo 
of  antiquity. 

The  tendency  of  the  human  mind  is  always  and  every- 
where much  the  same  ;  the  individual  thinks  of  the  years  of 
his  childhood  as  golden  years ;  the  nation  or  race  thinks 
of  the  age  of  its  childhood  as  a  golden  age.  Most  peoples 
of  the  past  have  either  worshipped  their  ancestors,  or  at 
least  have  thought  of  their  ancestors  as  in  some  way  more 
than  human.  Institutions,  or  customs,  or  traditions,  or 
writings,  or  heritages  of  any  kind  that  have  descended 
through  many  generations,  have  invariably  tended  to 
become  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  those  to  whom  they  have 
fallen.^     Particularly  has  this  always  been  the  case  in  the 

1  The  Koran,  Book  of  Mormon  and  "  vScience  and  Plealth  "  are  exceptions. 

2  How  age  gives  sacredness  is  well  illustrated  by  the  so-called  Apostles' 
Creed  (a  name  most  misleading,  since  the  creed  did  not  come  into  ex- 
istence until  centuries  after  the  Apostles'  death — see  Ency.  Brit.,  art. 
"Creeds  ;"  also  Schaff's  "  Creeds  of  Christendom,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  14-23)  and 
by  the  Nicene  Creed,  both  of  which,  on  account  of  long  use,  have  reached 
a  degree  of  sacredness  in  the  eyes  of  certain  sects  of  Christians,  little,  if  any, 
inferior  to  that  of  the  Bible.  It  is  a  question  whether  the  Breviary  and  the 
Missal  of  the  Iloman  Catholic  Church  and  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of 
tiie  Episcopal  Church  may  not  eventually  reach    the  condition  of  sacred 


Pr.ACE   OF    THE  BIBLE  AMONG  SACRED  BOOKS.         7 

more  fixed  and  less  progressive  civilizations  of  the  East, 
where  originated  the  great  Bibles  of  the  world.  Hardly 
one  of  these  Bibles — indeed,  hardly  one  of  the  writings  or 
fragments  of  which  any  Bible  is  made  up — seems  to  have 
been  regarded  as  in  any  true  sense  sacred  when  it  first 
came  into  existence.  What  the  fathers  prized  the  chil- 
dren venerated,  and  the  children's  children  lifted  up  into 
the  miraculous  and  the  divine. 

It  would  be  interesting  and  instructive  to  take  up,  in 
turn,  several  of  the  great  sacred  books  mentioned,  and 
trace  in  detail  the  steps,  as  modern  scholarship  has  been 
able  to  discover  them,  by  which  they  advanced  from  the 
position  of  merely  good  and  highly  prized  writings  to  the 
position  of  sacred  books.  But  our  space  will  not  allow 
us  to  do  this  with  reference  to  any  except  our  own  Bible. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  with  some  of  the  books  this  advance 
was  very  slow,  and  took  hundreds  of  years.  In  the  case 
of  the  Vedas  and  Zend-Avesta  it  appears  to  have  taken 
many  hundreds  of  years — as  is  also  true  with  at  least 
some  parts  of  our  own  Bible. 

As  regards  our  Old  Testament,  the  idea  of  sacredness 
was  attached  first  to  the  Pentateuch,  or  the  "■  Five  Books 
of  Moses,"  or  the  ''  Law,"  as  it  was  called.  And  the 
sacredness  of  even  this  seems  to  have  been  something 
very  shadowy  and  intangible  for  a  long  time.  The  part 
of  the  Old  Testament  called  by  the  Jews  "  The  Prophets  " 
came  next  to  be  regarded  as  sacred  ;  while  all  that  part 
then  known  as  "  The  Writings,"  and  including  such  books 


books.  They  are  already  regarded  by  multitudes  with  a  degree  of  reverence 
that  can  be  called  scarcely  less  than  superstitious — a  reverence  certainly 
quite  as  great  as  was  felt  in  the  days  of  Christ  for  important  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  quite  as  great  as  was  accorded  at  first  to  any  of  the 
writings  of  the  New  Testament. 


8  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

as  the  Psalms  and  Proverbs  and  Job,  which  are  generally 
held  to-day  in  higher  esteem  than  any  other  of  the  Old 
Testament  books,  did  not  come  to  be  regarded  as  really 
sacred  much  before  the  time  of  Christ.  Indeed,  at  the 
time  of  Christ  all  this  part  of  the  Old  Testament  was 
ranked  much  lower  in  authority  than  the  rest. 

As  to  the  New  Testament,  certain  Epistles  seem  to 
have  come  to  be  regarded  as  sacred,  or  authoritative, 
considerably  earlier  than  the  Gospels  or  the  Acts.  But 
for  a  long  time — perhaps  for  two  centuries — the  New 
Testament  writings  were  none  of  them  looked  upon  by 
the  Christian  Church  as  standing  upon  the  same  high 
level  with  the  Old  Testament.  And  at  least  three  or  four 
centuries  passed  away  before  it  was  decided,  more  than 
in  part,  which  particular  ones,  of  the  large  number  of 
writings  produced  within  a  century  or  two  after  the  death 
of  Jesus,  should  be  included  in  the  New  Testament  canon 
— that  is  to  say,  should  be  regarded  as  possessing  divine 
authority — and  which  should  be  cast  aside.  But  this 
subject  of  the  formation  of  our  own  Scripture  canon  will 
come  up  for  more  extended  notice  further  on.  (See 
Chapters  XVII.  and  XVIII.) 

Fictitious  Perfection :  Facing  Backward. — Another 
thing  which  may  be  said  of  all  the  various  sacred  books 
of  the  world  is,  that  just  as  soon  and  just  so  far  as  a 
people  have  come  to  regard  any  book  as  sacred,  they 
have  begun  to  be  blind  to  its  faults,  to  take  it  as  an  ulti- 
matum, and  to  be  unwilling  to  seek  for,  or  even  to  receive, 
anything  as  by  any  possibility  better  than  it.  Religion 
is  always  an  advancing  and  a  growing  thing  until  it  pro- 
duces for  itself  a  sacred  book  and  also  during  the  years 
or  the  centuries  in  which  the  sacred  book  is  coming  into 
existence.     But  the  Book  once  completed,  as  a  rule  reli- 


PLACE   OF    THE  BIBLE  AMONG   SACRED  BOOKS.       9 

gion  straightway  ceases  to  advance  or  grow.  Thereafter 
its  eyes  are  not  turned  forward  but  backward.  Every- 
thing thenceforth  must  be  estimated  as  good  or  bad, 
according  as  it  does  or  does  not  agree  with  the  teaching 
of  the  Book.  The  fact  that  the  Book  has  grown  to  be  re- 
garded as  sacred,  petrifies  the  reHgion  it  teaches,  makes 
sacred  every  crudeness,  every  childish  rite  or  ceremony, 
as  well  as  every  false  and  immoral  doctrine  which  it  con- 
tains, and  which,  but  for  the  notion  of  a  sacred  and  fault- 
less book,  the  people  would  in  due  time  outgrow  and  leave 
behind. 

Thus  it  is  that  in  India  a  single  text  of  the  Vedas 
(probably  misinterpreted,  at  that)  has  resulted  in  the  im- 
molation of  vast  numbers  of  widows  on  the  funeral  piles 
of  their  husbands.  Thus,  too,  it  is,  that  we  see  many  a 
religious  rite  practiced,  and  many  an  absurd  doctrine  be- 
lieved to-day  in  Christendom,  which  long  ago  would  have 
been  laid  aside  but  for  the  notion  of  a  Book  that  is  sacred, 
and  whose  every  word,  therefore,  must  be  accepted,  and 
whose  lightest  injunction  must  be  carried  out  to  the  letter, 
as  long  as  time  lasts. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  the  single  Old  Testament 
text,  "Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live,"  has  caused 
the  death  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  innocent  human 
beings.  Such  Old  Testament  books  as  Joshua,  Judges, 
Samuel,  Kings,  and  Chronicles,  full  of  the  records  of  inhu- 
man wars,  said  to  have  been  commanded  by  Jehovah,  have 
been  responsible,  in  no  small  degree,  for  the  terrible  war 
spirit  which  has  wrought  such  havoc  in  Christendom  during 
nearly  every  century  since  Christianity  began. 

Polygamy  has  always  appealed  to  the  Bible  for  support. 
Were  not  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  David,  and  Solomon 
polygamists?     Yet  these  men  are  represented  as  special 


10  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

favorites  of  God.  Tyranizers  over  women  have  gone  to 
the  Bible  for  texts  wherewith  to  justify  their  tyranny.  So 
have  wine-drinkers  for  texts  to  justify  their  use  of  wine. 
The  biblical  teaching  that  the  insane  are  possessed  of  devils 
caused  insane  men  and  women  to  be  treated  in  the  most 
inhuman  ways  for  centuries.  Inquisitions,  persecutions, 
and  oppressions  of  all  kinds  have  made  their  constant  ap- 
peal to  texts  from  the  Bible  to  support  their  crimes  against 
humanity.^ 

We  have  here  an  explanation  of  the  very  strange  fact 
that  so  many  excellent  Christian  people  in  this  country 
only  a  little  while  ago  defended  slavery  as  something 
good  and  right.  It  happened  that  the  people  from 
whom  the  Old  Testament  part  of  our  sacred  book  came, 
held  slaves,  and,  in  common  with  most  other  nations  in 
that  early  age  of  the  world,  thought  it  right  so  to  do. 
The  centuries  that  have  passed  since  that  time  have 
carried  the  world  forward  to  the  point  where  all  the 
leading  nations  now  see  plainly  that  slavery  is  wrong. 
But  the  fact  that  the  sacred  book  sanctioned  slavery 
blinded  many  eyes.  Instead  of  asking  what  was  right, 
men  and  women  asked  what  the  sacred  book  taught; 
which  was  only  equivalent  to  asking  what  was  supposed 
to  be  right  by  a  people  of  much  lower  civilization  than 
ours,  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago,  at  the  time 
the  Book  crystallized  into  sacredness.  This  was  a  fearful 
mistake,  which  resulted  in  arraying  tens  of  thousands 
of  as  conscientious  and  kind-hearted  people  as  the  world 
ever  saw,  on  the  side  of  as  dark  and  cruel,  and  in  its 
spirit  unchristian,  an  institution  as  has  disgraced  our 
modern    world.      Such    are    specimens   of  the    evils   that 


1  For  a  more  full  treatment  of  this  subject,  see  chapters  xxiii.,  xxiv.,  and  xxv. 


PLACE   OF   THE  BIBLE  AMONG   SACRED  BOOKS.      II 

necessarily  come  from  going  back  into  the  past,  and  tak- 
ing a  book  written  in  an  age  long  gone  by,  and  for  an 
age  long  gone  by,  and  setting  it  up  as  a  standard  for  the 
present  age — as  the  various  peoples  of  the  world  have 
set  up  their  sacred  books  or  Bibles  as  standards  for  all 
time. 

Sacred  Books  tolerate  no  Rivals. — Another  thing 
seems  to  be  common  with  nearly  all  the  great  sacred 
books  of  the  world,  or,  rather,  with  the  believers  in  nearly 
all  these  books  ;  and  this  is,  that,  as  soon  as  any  one  of 
these  books  comes  to  be  set  up  as  sacred,  or  as  a  Bible, 
it  is  from  that  time  forward  regarded  by  its  adherents  as 
the  only  Bible,  and  all  the  other  sacred  books  of  the 
world  are  cast  out  as  false.  In  other  words,  the  process 
of  canonization  of  a  book,  or  of  lifting  it  up  from  a 
merely  good  book  into  a  sacred  book  or  Bible,  seems  to 
be  virtually  a  process  of  degradation  or  condemnation  of 
all  other  books  and  religions.  And  so  the  Buddhist  has 
ever  been  the  bitter  foe  of  the  Brahman,  and  the  Moham- 
medan  of  the  Buddhist,  and  the  Christian  of  the  Mo- 
hammedan. Whereas,  the  evident  truth  is,  each  of  the 
world's  Bibles  contains  a  great  deal  that  is  good,  with 
more  or  less  that  is  of  no  value,  if  not  positively  bad. 
Each  religion  has  divine  elements  in  it,  as  well  as  ele- 
ments that  are  very  undivine  ;  and  it  is  a  great  pity  that 
the  eyes  of  men  should  be  blinded  to  this  fact.  It  is  not 
only  a  great  pity  that  the  adherents  of  other  Bibles  and 
religions  of  the  world  should  be  blinded  to  this  fact  as 
regards  our  Christian  Scriptures  and  religion,  but  it  is 
also  a  pity  that  we  should  be  blinded  to  the  same  fact  as 
regards  scriptures  and  religions  which  are  not  Christian. 

False  Methods  of  Interpretation. — Vicious  systems 
of    interpretation    inevitably   arise    in    connection    with 


12  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

sacred  books.  These  books,  by  reason  of  the  infallibility 
claimed  for  them,  become  everywhere  fetters  upon  men's 
minds.  But  the  human  mind  was  made  for  freedom.  It 
may  be  brought  to  submit  unresistingly  to  bonds  for  a 
time,  but  not  forever.  It  must  think  and  inquire,  or  die  ; 
and  that  means  it  must  make  progress  in  knowledge,  or 
die.  Hence  we  find  that  one  of  the  most  wide-spread 
and  continuous  struggles  of  the  race  has  been  that  which 
it  has  made  to  escape  from  the  bondage  of  the  past  and 
the  outgrown,  which  the  rule  of  its  so-called  "  infallible  " 
sacred  books  has  always  imposed  upon  it. 

How  can  it  do  this?  Generally  it  is  unable  to  do  it 
directly,  but  it  is  driven  to  methods  of  indirection.  The 
means  most  often  employed  is  that  of  new,  and,  it  must 
be  confessed,  more  or  less  perverted  and  false,  methods 
of  interpretation.  Men  allow  themselves  conveniently 
to  drop  into  the  background  some  of  the  more  incredible 
or  objectionable  things  which  the  books  contain ;  they 
develop  a  marvelous  facility  in  explaining  away  contra- 
dictions and  inaccuracies  and  things  which  the  increase 
of  knowledge  has  shown  not  to  be  true,  and  in  reading 
into  the  books  in  a  thousand  places  all  sorts  of  new  mean- 
ings and  so-called  '*  deeper  interpretations,"  to  make  the 
teachings  of  the  books  harmonize  with  the  increase  of 
knowledge.  That  which  really  belongs  to  the  mind  of 
the  reader  is  attributed  to  that  of  the  writer.  The 
natural  and  simple  meaning  of  the  words  is  set  aside. 
Forced  interpretations  are  put  upon  passages  for  the  pur- 
pose of  compelling  them  to  harmonize  with  that  which 
it  is  supposed  they  ought  to  mean.  Statements,  doc- 
trines, and  allusions  are  discovered  in  the  books  which  not 
only  have  no  existence  in  their  pages,  but  which  are  abso- 
lutely foreign  to  the  epoch  at  which  they  were  written. 


PLACE   OF    THE  BIBLE  AMONG   SACRED  BOOKS.      1 3 

This  process  of  false  interpretation  is  greatly  favored 
by  distance  of  time.  Says  Prof.  Benjamin  Jowett  :  "  All 
nations  who  have  ancient  writings  have  endeavored  to 
read  in  them  the  riddle  of  the  past.  The  Brahmin, 
repeating  his  Vedic  hymns,  sees  them  pervaded  by  a 
thousand  meanings,  which  have  been  handed  down  by 
tradition  ;  the  one  of  which  he  is  ignorant  is  that  which 
we  perceive  to  be  the  true  one."  Says  Max  Miiller : 
*'  Greater  violence  is  done  by  successive  interpreters  to 
sacred  writings  than  to  any  other  relics  of  ancient  liter- 
ature. Ideas  grow  and  change,  yet  each  generation  tries 
to  find  its  own  ideas  reflected  in  the  sacred  pages  of  their 
early  prophets.  Passages  in  the  Veda  and  Zend-Avesta 
which  do  not  bear  on  religious  or  philosophical  doctrines 
are  generally  explained  simply  and  naturally,  even  by  the 
latest  of  native  commentators.  But  as  soon  as  any  word 
or  sentence  can  be  so  turned  as  to  support  a  [religious] 
doctrine,  however  modern,  or  a  [religious]  precept,  how- 
ever irrational,  the  simplest  phrases  are  tortured  and 
mangled  till  at  last  they  are  made  to  yield  their  assent  to 
ideas  the  most  foreign  to  the  minds  of  the  authors  of  the 
Veda  and  Zend-Avesta."  This  practice  of  interpreting 
into  sacred  books  what  later  ages  think  ought  to  be  in 
them,  and  out  of  them  what  later  ages  think  ought  not 
to  be  there,  is  pointed  out  and  illustrated  with  regard 
to  the  Chinese,  Brahmanic,  and  Buddhist  sacred  books, 
by  Dr.  Legge,  Dr.  Muir,  Burnouf,  Max  Miiller,  and  others.' 

'  The  later  Greeks  regarded  the  writings  of  Homer  with  the  same  super- 
stitious veneration,  and  interpreted  into  them  all  sorts  of  doctrines  which 
could  have  had  no  place  in  the  mind  of  the  writer.  For  example,  "  they 
found  therein  the  Neptunian  and  Vulcanian  theory  ;  the  sphericity  of  the 
earth  ;  the  doctrines  of  Democritus,  Herodotus,  and  of  Socrates  and  Plato 
in  their  turn"  (Parker's  "Discourse  of  Religion"). 


14  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

Illustrations  of  the  same  with  regard  to  our  own  Bible 
are  more  numerous  still.  Indeed,  the  whole  history  of 
Christianity  is  full  of  exhibitions  of  the  most  marvelous 
and  unflagging  ingenuity  in  inventing  new  interpretations 
of  Scripture  to  keep  pace  with  the  growth  of  human 
thought  and  the  progress  of  knowledge  and  science. 

Almost  every  scientific  theory  that  comes  into  exist- 
ence is  found  to  conflict  in  some  point  or  other  with  the 
theological  notions  which  an  unscientific  past  has  handed 
down.  But  the  theologians  are  ever  on  the  alert ;  and 
war  is  at  once  declared  against  the  scientific  intruder.  All 
good  men  are  summoned  to  the  defence  of  the  Bible. 
The  conflict  rages  fiercely,  and  shows  no  sign  of  abate- 
ment until  it  is  seen  that  the  scientists  are  getting  the  day, 
when  lo  !  it  soon  begins  to  be  discovered  by  the  theolo- 
gians that,  after  all,  the  new  theory  is  harmless,  indeed, 
there  is  no  discrepancy  between  it  and  Scripture.  The 
discrepancy  that  had  been  supposed  to  exist  grew  out  of 
a  wrong  Scripture  interpretation.  In  fact,  instead  of  the 
two  being  in  conflict,  the  scientific  theory  is  really  taught 
in  the  Bible.' 

»  "  As  soon  as  science  has  won  the  assent  of  public  opinion  to  any  of  its 
discoveries,  or  even  established  the  preponderating  probability  of  any  of  its 
theories,  the  religious  world  has  ever  made  haste  to  declare  that  former 
interpretations  of  the  Scripture  have  been  mistaken,  and  that  this  new  dis- 
covery of  science  is  just  what  the  sacred  record  has  always  taught  from  the 
earliest  times  down,  if  only  it  had  been  rightly  understood.  The  six  days  of 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  never  meant  days  of  twenty-four  hours,  but 
geological  epochs.  The  Adam  whose  creation  took  place  just  four  thousand 
years  before  Christ,  was  not,  of  course,  the  first  man,  but  the  progenitor 
merely  of  the  chosen  higher  race.  The  Deluge  was  a  local  cataclysm  or 
geological  subsidence  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  etc.,  etc.  As 
each  past  age  read  into  the  Bible  its  favorite  theories — in  TertuUian's  time 
the  materiality  of  the  soul,  and  in  Augustine's  the  flatness  of  the  earth — so 
the  interpreters  and  commentators  of  to  day  with  equal  ingenuity  can  dove- 


PLACE    OF    THE  BIBLE   AMONG   SACRED   BOOKS.       1 5 

Thus  we  see  a  remarkable  similarity  in  the  methods  d 
interpretation  adopted  generally  by  the  adherents  of  the 
various  sacred  books  of  the  world.  Everywhere  we  dis- 
cover the  same  facility  in  "  explaining  away  "  whatever 
proves  itself  troublesome  in  their  pages,  and  in  reading 
into  them  whatever  new  meanings  the  changes  of  the 
times  and  the  growth  of  men's  thought  may  seem  to 
make  necessary. 

In  one  aspect  of  it,  of  course,  all  this  is  humiliating. 
Yet  in  another  it  is  encouraging.  It  shows  that  the 
tyranny  of  sacred  books  cannot  last  forever.  Sooner  or 
later  the  right-thinking  human  mind  revolts  against  it.  To- 
day that  revolt  is  more  deep  and  earnest  than  ever  before. 
Science,  the  printing  press,  the  school,  the  spirit  of  free 


tail  the  inspired  record  into  every  latest  crinkle  of  scientific  fact  or  fancy. 
Spontaneous  generation,  they  tell  you,  is  plainly  taught  in  Genesis  ;  evolu- 
tion is  anticipated  by  Moses  ;  and  Darwin  and  Job  evidently  had  the  same 
ideas.  In  the  days  of  Garibaldi  there  was  a  popular  story  in  England, 
ascribed  to  Disraeli,  in  which  the  objection  made  to  a  pleasant  plan  of  mar- 
rying the  Italian  patriot  to  a  wealthy  English  lady — viz.,  that  Garibaldi 
already  had  one  wife — was  triumphantly  met  by  the  suggestion  of  Disraeli 
that  Gladstone  could  be  easily  got  to  explain  her  away.  The  '  reconcilers  ' 
of  science  and  Scripture  whom  we  have  been  speaking  of,  manifest  a  theo- 
logical dissipating  power  of  equal  strength  "  (James  T.  Bixby). 

Years  ago  John  Weiss  declared  :  "  Soon  it  will  be  difficult  to  find  an 
orthodox  thinker  who  will  not  claim  to  be  a  disciple  of  Darwin  ;  just  as  we 
have  lived  to  hear  the  old-fashioned  Whigs  assert  that  they  always  were 
original  Garrisonian  Abolitionists." 

"  The  doctrine  of  evolution  is  already  almost  triumphant.  There  scarcely 
remains  for  the  recalcitrants  any  other  resources  than  to  demonstrate  its  per- 
fect agreement  with  the  [theological]  dogmas  they  are  not  willing  to  aban- 
don. The  thing  is  in  process  of  execution.  The  interpreters  are  skilful, 
the  sacred  texts  obliging,  the  metaphysical  theories  ductile,  malleable,  flex- 
ible. Courage  !  We  must  be  very  narrow-minded,  indeed,  not  to  recog^nize 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  a  succinct  exposition  of  the  Darwinian  theory  " 
(Lctourneau,  "  Biology,"  p.  303). 


i6  ORIGIN-  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE. 

inquiry  which  is  abroad  in  the  modern  world,  are  mighty 
liberators.  Sacred  books  will  not  be  thrown  away  :  they 
contain  truth  of  too  much  value,  and  they  have  too  cen- 
tral a  place  in  the  religious  history  and  education  of  the 
race  for  that.  But  everything  indicates  that,  at  least  in 
Christian  lands,  they  will  more  and  more  be  relegated  to 
their  proper  place  as  servants  of  man  :  they  will  not  much 
longer  be  permitted  to  fetter  his  intellect  and  dwarf  his 
life. 


CHAPTER    II. 

SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED 

BOOKS. 

The  place  of  our  Bible  among  the  great  sacred  books 
of  mankind  cannot  be  adequately  understood  without  at 
least  a  brief  study  of  the  similarities  that  exist  between 
its  teachings  and  those  of  other  sacred  books. 

It  is  the  tendency  of  dogmatists  in  every  religion  to 
affirm  that  their  faith  alone  is  true,  and  that  their  sacred 
scriptures  are  the  only  divine  revelation.  Christianity 
has  not  been  free  from  such  affirmations.  But  such  dog- 
matism closes  men's  eyes  against  any  possible  broad  and 
adequate  understanding  of  either  the  world's  religions  or 
its  sacred  books.  He  who  knows  only  one  of  the  re- 
ligions of  the  world  knows  none.  He  who  knows  only 
one  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  world  knows  none.  All 
sacred  books  are  related.  All  the  great  historic  religions 
are  sisters.  This  has  been  pointed  out  to  some  extent 
in  the  preceding  chapter.  It  will  be  the  aim  of  the  pres- 
ent chapter  to  make  it  plainer  still. 

All  sacred  books  have  much  in  common.  This  is 
true  as  regards  the  more  superficial  and  less  essential 
parts  of  their  teachings — for  example,  their  legends,  their 
mythological  notions,  their  accounts  of  miraculous  events, 
their  rites  and  ceremonies  ;  and  it  is  true,  also,  as  regards 
the  more  deep  and  essential  parts  of  their  teachings — for 
example,  their  social  and  religious  precepts,  and  the  great 
body  of  their  ethical  doctrine. 

2  17 


1 8  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

(l.)  Similarities  of  Teaching  in  Matters  Superficial 
and  Transient.  —  Notice  first  the  teachings  of  the 
various  sacred  books  with  regard  to  the  externaHties  of 
reUgion,  and  those  intellectual  conceptions  which  change 
with  the  growing  intelligence  of  the  race.  Amidst  all 
the  variety,  it  is  surprising  how  much  of  similarity,  and 
even  of  identity,  there  is  found  in  these  things. 

Sacrifices  and  offerifigs  to  the  gods  are  common  to 
nearly  all  religions,  and  laws  and  regulations  therefor 
occupy  a  large  place  in  the  world's  sacred  books.  We 
have  been  taught  that  the  Jewish  sacrificial  system  was 
a  special  revelation  of  God  to  his  chosen  people.  But  a 
study  of  the  religions  of  mankind  shows  that  that  sys- 
tem differed  little  from  those  of  many  heathen  nations. 
Not  only  did  the  sacrificial  idea  and  the  atonement  idea 
come  into  Christianity  from  Judaism,  but  it  is  certain  that 
both  came  into  Judaism  from  heathenism. 

Circumcision  did  not  originate  with  the  Jews,  but  was 
practiced  in  Egypt  long  before  the  Jewish  people  had  an 
existence. 

The  rite  of  baptism  is  found  to  have  existed  long  before 
the  time  of  Christ,  and  in  many  parts  of  the  world  be- 
sides Palestine. 

The  cross  as  a  sacred  symbol  is  much  older  than  Chris- 
tianity, and  common  to  many  lands.  The  Sacrament,  or 
Eucharist,  or  Lord's  Supper,  is  found  in  essence  in  other 
religions. 

The  ideas  of  divine  incarnations,  immaculate  concep- 
tions, and  virgin-born  gods  are  found  in  many  religions 
and  Bibles.  Nothing  is  more  common  in  the  mytholo- 
gies of  Greece  and  Rome  than  stories  of  children  of  the 
gods  born  of  human  mothers.  The  Egyptian  Osiris 
was  regarded  as  a  divine  incarnation.     Buddha  is  repre- 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  SACRED  BOOKS,  1 9 

scnted  as  born  without  a  human  father.  Confucius  and 
Lao-tse  both  had  miraculous  births.  Zoroaster  is  begot- 
ten by  a  ray  from  the  Divine  Reason.  The  later  Hindu 
sacred  books  represent  the  god  Vishnu  as  having  been 
incarnated  nine  times.  The  seventh  and  eighth  incarna- 
tions were  in  the  persons  of  the  Hindu  warriors  Rama 
and  Krishna.  The  ninth  took  the  form  of  the  great 
teacher  Gautama,  the  Buddha.' 

The  idea  of  Messiahs  is  found  in  other  sacred  books 
besides  our  own.  The  Chinese  and  Hindu  scriptures 
contain  prophecies  of  Messiahs  to  come. 

Miracles  are  common  to  most  of  the  Bibles,  and  even 
the  very  same  kinds  of  miracles,  such  as  raising  the  dead 
to  life,  healing  the  blind  and  lame,  voices  speaking  out  of 
heaven  to  persons  favored  of  God,  the  Holy  Spirit  com- 
ing in  the  form  of  a  dove,  and  so  forth. 

Thomas  W.  Higginson  puts  the  whole  case  well,  in  his 
admirable  little  monograph,  *'The  Sympathy  of  Reli- 
gions," when  he  says  :  **  We  constantly  meet  [in  the  differ- 
ent religions  of  the  world]  the  same  leading  features. 
We  find  the  same  religious  institutions — monks,  mission- 
aries, priests,  pilgrims ;  the  same  ritual — prayers,  liturgies, 
sacrifices;  the  same  implements — frankincense,  candles, 
holy  water,  relics,  amulets,  votive  offerings ;  the  same 
symbols — the  cross,  the  serpent,  the  all-seeing  eye,  the 
halo  of  rays;  the  sdiVCiQ prophecies  and  miracles — the  dead 
restored  and  evil  spirits  cast  out ;  the  same  holy  days — for 
Easter  and  Christmas  were  kept  as  spring  and  autumn 

'  "  We  meet  again  and  again  with  the  curious  longing  after  a  miraculous 
birth,  claimed  for  the  founders  or  propounders  of  new  religions  by  their 
devoted  disciples  and  followers, — as  if  there  could  be,  or  as  if  poor  human 
reason  could  even  imagine,  anything  more  truly  miraculous  than  a  natural 
birth  and  a  natural  death  "  (Muller's  "  Natural  Religion,"  p.  546). 


20  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

festivals,  centuries  before  our  era,  by  Egyptians,  Per- 
sians, Saxons,  Romans  ;  the  same  artistic  designs — for  the 
mother  and  child  stand  depicted  not  only  in  the  temples 
of  Europe,  but  in  those  of  Arabia,  Eg>'pt,  and  Thibet." 

Many  writers  on  Buddhism  have  called  attention  to  the 
curious  similarity  between  the  legends  that  have  gathered 
about  Buddha  and  those  that  have  gathered  about  Christ. 
Both  Buddha  and  Jesus  are  represented  as  of  royal 
lineage ;  both  are  born  of  virgin  mothers ;  the  birth  of 
each  is  announced  by  heavenly  messengers ;  princes  and 
wise  men  seek  out  the  infants  respectively,  bringing 
homage  and  costly  gifts.  Having  arrived  at  manhood, 
each  passes  through  a  season  of  supernatural  temptation 
before  entering  upon  his  public  work  as  a  teacher ;  at  the 
death  of  each  the  earth  trembles,  etc. 

Perhaps  even  more  remarkable  is  the  similarity  that 
exists  between  the  rites,  ceremonies,  and  ecclesiastical 
system  of  Buddhism  and  those  of  Christianity — at  least, 
Christianity  in  its  Roman  Catholic  form.  Says  Rhys 
Davids  in  his  Hibbert  Lectures:  "Buddhism  and  Chris- 
tianity have  both  developed  in  the  course  of  fifteen 
hundred  years  into  sacerdotal  and  sacramental  systems, 
each  with  its  bells  and  rosaries,  and  images  and  holy 
water;  each  with  its  services  in  dead  languages,  with 
choirs  and  processions,  and  creeds  and  incense,  in  which 
the  laity  are  spectators  only ;  each  with  its  mystic  rites 
and  ceremonies  performed  by  shaven  priests  in  gorgeous 
robes;  each  with  its  abbots  and  monks  and  nuns  of  many 
grades ;  each  with  its  worship  of  virgins,  saints,  and 
angels ;  its  reverence  to  the  Virgin  and  the  Child  ;  its 
confessions,  fasts,  and  purgatory  ;  its  idols,  relics,  sym- 
bols, and  sacred  pictures;  its  shrines  and  pilgrimages; 
each  with  its  huge  monasteries  and  gorgeous  cathedrals; 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  SACRED  BOOKS.  21 

its  powerful  hierarchy  and  its  wealthy  cardinals ;  each, 
even,  ruled  over  by  a  pope,  with  a  triple  tiara  on  his 
head  and  the  sceptre  of  temporal  power  in  his  hand."  ^ 

All  this  similarity  is  very  astonishing.  We  are  told 
that  when  the  first  Christian  missionaries  went  among 
the  Buddhists  they  were  able  to  account  for  it  in  no  way 
except  by  supposing  that  the  devil  had  forestalled  them 
by  going  there  first  and  planting  among  the  people  a 
counterfeit  as  much  like  Christianity  as  possible.  In 
more  recent  times  the  effort  has  been  made  repeatedly 
to  explain  these  resemblances  by  supposing  that  one 
religion  copied  from  the  other.  But  the  careful  investi- 
gations of  scholars  make  it  well-nigh  certain  that  there 
has  been  little,  if  any,  such  copying,  but  that  each 
religion  has  developed  these  features  independently.  It 
is  found  that  the  similarities  between  the  stories  that 
cluster  about  Buddha  and  Jesus  extend  also  very  largely 
to  those  that  have  sprung  up  around  Krishna,  Confucius, 
Lao-tse,  Zoroaster,  Osiris,  Moses,  Mahomet,  and  many 
other  religious  characters,  fabled  and  real ;  and  the 
ceremonial  and  ecclesiastical  resemblances  that  appear 
betwf»^n  Buddhism  and  Roman  Catholicism  are  scarcely 
more  striking  than  those  that  appear  between  many 
other  religions.  '^     The  truth  seems  to  be  that  these  are 

'  Hibbert  Lectures,  1881,  p.  193, 

^  For  example,  similarities  almost  as  great  may  be  pointed  out  between 
Judaism  and  Christianity,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  religion  of  ancient 
Egfypt  on  the  other.  Says  Prof.  J.  P.  Mahaffy  in  his  "  Prolegomena  to 
Ancient  History"  (p.  416) :  "There  is  scarcely  a  great  and  fruitful  idea  in 
the  Jewish  or  Christian  systems  which  has  not  its  analogy  in  the  Egyptian 
faith.  The  development  of  the  one  God  into  a  Trinity ;  the  incarnation  of 
the  mediating  Deity  into  a  virgin,  and  without  a  father  ;  his  conflict  and  his 
momentary  defeat  by  the  powers  of  darkness  ;  his  partial  victory  (for  the 
^nemy  is  not  destroyed) ;  his  resurrection  and  reij^n  over  an  eternal  kingdom 


22  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

all  natural  developments.  Just  as,  under  like  circum- 
stances, different  peoples  develop  industrially  and  socially 
along  parallel  lines,  so  under  similar  circumstances  they 
develop  similar  religious  ideas,  institutions,  mythologies, 
and  observances.' 

(2.)  Similarities  of  Teaching  in  Matters  Essential 
and  Permanent. — But  it  is  not  simply  in  regard  to  the 
more  external  and  unimportant  things  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  in  common  between  the  different  Bibles  and  religions 
of  the  world  ;  the  same  is  even  more  emphatically  true  as 
regards  the  deeper  and  more  vital  things,  particularly  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  teachings  of  the  different  Bibles. 

Says  Max  Miiller:  '*  There  is  no  religion — or  if  there  is 
I  do  not  know  it — which  does  not  say,  *  Do  good,  avoid 
evil.'  I  wish,"  he  continues,  '*  that  I  could  read  you 
extracts  I  have  collected  from  the  sacred  books  of  the 
ancient  world,  grains  of  truth  more  precious  to  me  than 
grains  of  gold  ;    prayers  so  simple  and  so  true  that  we 


with  his  justified  saints  ;  his  distinction  from,  and  yet  identity  with,  the 
uncreate,  incomprehensible  Father,  whose  form  is  unknown,  and  who 
dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands — all  these  theological  conceptions 
pervade  the  oldest  religion  of  Egypt.  So,  too,  the  contrast,  and  even  the 
apparent  inconsistencies  between  our  moral  and  theological  beliefs — the 
vacillating  attribution  of  sin  and  guilt  partly  to  moral  weakness,  partly  to 
the  interference  of  evil  spirits,  and  likewise  of  righteousness  to  moral  worth, 
and  again  to  the  help  of  good  genii  and  angels  ;  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
and  its  final  judgment ;  the  purgatorial  fire,  the  torture  of  the  damned — all 
these  things  have  met  us  in  the  Egyptian  Ritual  and  moral  treatises." 

'For  further  information  upon  this  subject  see  Pfleiderer's  "Philosophy 
of  Religion,"  vols.  iii.  and  iv. ;  Reville's  "Prolegomena  of  the  History  of 
Religions  ;"  Tylor's  "  Primitive  Culture";  Brinton's  "  The  Religious  Senti- 
ment"; "The  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,"  translated  under  the  supervision 
of  Max  Miiller,  or  other  translations  of  sacred  books  ;  and  standard  works, 
generally,  upon  comparative  religion,  comparative  mythology,  and  the 
separate  religions  of  mankind. 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  SACRED  BOOKS,  23 

could  all  join  in  them."  After  giving  a  translation  of  a 
prayer  of  some  length  from  the  Vedas,  he  adds:  '*  I  am 
not  blind  to  the  blemishes  of  this  ancient  prayer,  but 
I  am  not  blind  to  its  beauty  either;  and  I  think  you 
will  admit  that  the  discovery  of  even  one  such  poem 
among  the  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda,  and  the  certainty 
that  such  a  poem  was  composed  in  India  at  least  three 
thousand  years  ago,  without  any  inspiration  but  that 
which  all  can  find  who  seek  for  it  if  happily  they  may 
find  it,  is  well  worth  the  labor  of  a  life.  It  shows  that 
man  was  never  (nor  in  any  nation)  forsaken  of  God." 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  a  volume  with  extracts  from 
the  different  great  sacred  books  of  the  world,  illustrating 
the  essential  identity  of  their  teachings  regarding  many 
of  the  deep  things  of  religion  and  Hfe.  But  I  must  con- 
tent myself  with  citing  a  very  few. 

The  Sacred  Books  of  the  Hindus.— Here  is  a  hymn 
from  the  Rig-Veda  which  cannot  fail  to  call  to  mind 
some  of  the  most  exalted  portions  of  our  own  Job  or 
Isaiah : 

"  Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our  sacrifice? 

He  who  gives  life  ;  He  who  gives  strength  ; 

Whose  command  all  the  bright  gods  revere  ; 

Whose  shadow  is  immortality. 

Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our  sacrifice  ? 

He  who  through  his  power  is  the  one  King  of  the  breathing  and  awak- 
ening world — 

Who  governs  all,  man  and  beast. 

Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our  sacrifice  ? 

He  whose  greatness  these  snowy  mountains,  whose  greatness  the  sea 
proclaims ; 

He  through  whom  the  sky  is  bright  and  the  earth  firm ; 

He  through  whom  the  heaven  was  established, — nay,  the  highest 
heaven  ; 

He  to  whom  heaven  and  earth,  standing  firm  by  his  will,  look  up. 


24  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our  sacrifice  ? 
He  who  by  his  might  looked  even  over  the  water-clouds — 
The  clouds  which  gave  strength  and  lit  the  sacrifice ; 
He  who  alone  is  God  above  all  gods."  * 

The  following  hymn,  also  from  the  Rig- Veda,  needs 
only  to  have  the  word  "  Varuna  "  changed  to  "  Almighty  " 
to  fit  it  for  a  place  in  almost  any  Christian  liturgy  : 

"  Let  me  not  yet,  O  Varuna.  enter  into  the  house  of  clay  ; 

Have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy  ! 
If  I  go  along  trembling,  like  a  cloud  driven  by  the  wind  ; 

Have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy  ! 
Through  want  of  strength,  thou  strong  and  bright  God,  have  I  gone  to 
the  wrong  shore  ; 

Have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy  ! 
Whenever  we  men,  O  Varuna,  commit  an  offense  against  the  heavenly 
host  ; 

Whenever  we  break  thy  law  through  thoughtlessness, 

Punish  us  not,  O  God,  for  our  offense  !  "  * 

Nearly  every  line  of  the  following  selections  from  two 
Vedic  hymns  reminds  us  of  some  passage  in  the  Hebrew 
Psalms  : 

"  The  great  Lord  of  these  worlds  sees  as  if  he  were  near.  If  a  man 
thinks  he  is  walking  by  stealth,  the  gods  know  it  all. 

If  a  man  stands  or  walks  or  hides,  if  he  goes  to  lie  down  or  get  up, 
what  two  persons  sitting  together  whisper.  King  Varuna  knows  it,  for  he  is 
there  as  a  third. 

This  earth,  too,  belongs  to  Varuna,  the  King,  and  this  wide  sky.  He 
who  should  flee  far  beyond  the  sky  would  not  there  escape  from  Varuna. 

His  messengers  descending  from  heaven  traverse  this  world.  The  thou- 
sand-eyed Varuna  looketh  across  the  whole  earth.  The  winking  of  men's 
eyes  are  numbered  by  him. 

Wide  and  mighty  are  the  works  of  him  who  separated  the  firmaments. 
He  lifted  on  high  the  bright  and  glorious  heaven.  He  stretched  apart  the 
starry  sky  and  the  earth. 

Do  I  say  this  of  my  own  self  ?     How  can  I  approach  Varuna  ?    Will  he 

'  Rig- Veda,  x.  121  (abridged).  '  Rig-Veda,  vii.  89. 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  SACRED  BOOKS.  2$ 

be  pleased  to  accept  my  offering?  When  shall  I  with  a  quiet  mind  see  him 
propitiated  ? 

O  free  us  from  the  sins  of  our  fathers,  and  from  those  which  we  have 
committed  with  our  own  bodies  !  Protect  us,  O  gods,  always  with  your 
blessings  ! "  ^ 

The  Sacred  Book  of  the  Persians. — Here  are  a  few 
passages  from  the  Avesta,  the  Bible  of  the  Persians,  one 
of  the  oldest  and  noblest  of  the  world's  sacred  books : 

**  The  will  of  the  Lord  is  the  law  of  holiness."  ^ 
"  Holiness  is  the  best  of  all  good."  ' 

Zoroaster  asked  the  All-knowing,  "  What  is  the  one 
recital  of  the  praise  of  holiness  which  is  worth  all  that  is 
between  the  earth  and  the  heavens  ?  **  And  he  answered, 
**  It  is  that  one,  O  holy  Zoroaster,  which  a  man  uttereth 
when  he  would  renounce  evil  thoughts,  evil  words,  and 
evil  deeds."* 

Here  is  an  allegory  that  is  worthy  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. It  is  designed  to  set  forth  the  influence  of  the 
conscience  after  death : 

"  At  the  end  of  the  third  night  [after  death],  when  the  dawn  appeareth,  it 
seemeth  to  the  soul  of  the  faithful  one  as  if  his  own  conscience  were  advanc- 
ing toward  him  in  the  form  of  a  maiden,  fair,  bright,  white-armed,  strong, 
tall-formed,  noble,  of  a  glorious  race,  as  fair  as  the  fairest  things  in  the 


'  From  the  Atharva-Veda,  iv.  i6,  and  the  Rig-Veda,  vii.  86.  The 
penitential  and  ethical  character  of  many  of  the  Vedic  hymns  has  often 
been  pointed  out.  Says  Professor  Tiele,  '*  Some  of  the  hymns  [of  the 
Vedas],  especially  those  addressed  to  Varuna,  are  marked  by  a  deep  sense 
of  guilt,  and  the  mighty  Indra  must  be  approached  in  faith.  The  doctrine 
of  immortality,  also,  indicates  the  ethical  character  of  the  Vedic  religion  '* 
("History  of  Religion,"  p.  117). 

*  Yasht  xxiii. 

'  Yasht  xxiv.    (Repeated  in  this  Yasht  eight  times  ;  also  found  in  others.) 

*  Yasht  xxi.  16,  17. 


26  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

world.  And  as  the  soul  of  the  faithful  one  spake  unto  her,  saying,  *  What 
maiden  art  thou,  that  art  the  fairest  maid  I  have  ever  looked  upon  ?'  she 
answered  him,  '  O  thou  youth  of  good  thoughts,  good  words,  works,  and 
religion,  I  am  thine  own  conscience.  Every  one  did  love  thee  for  that  great- 
ness, goodness,  fairness,  sweetness,  victorious  strength,  and  freedom  from 
sorrow  in  which  I  appear  to  thee.  When  thou  sawest  a  man  making  deri- 
sion [of  holy  things],  and  doing  works  of  idolatry,  or  rejecting  the  poor,  and 
shutting  the  door  to  the  poor,  then  thou  didst  sit,  singing  psalms  and  wor- 
shipping the  son  of  the  Lord,  and  with  alms  rejoicing  the  faithful  from  near 
and  from  far.  I  was  lovely,  and  thou  madest  me  still  more  lovely  ;  I  was 
fair,  and  thou  madest  me  still  fairer,  through  that  good  speech,  good  thought, 
and  good  deed  of  thine.  And  so,  henceforth,  men  worship  me  for  having  long 
had  converse  with  the  Lord  Omniscient.  .  .  .  The  first  step  which  the 
soul  of  the  faithful  man  made  did  place  him  in  the  Paradise  of  Good 
Thoughts  ;  the  second,  in  the  Paradise  of  Good  Words  ;  the  third,  in  the 
Paradise  of  Good  Deeds  ;  the  fourth,  in  the  Paradise  of  Endless  Light."  ' 

We  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  single  other  quotation 
from  the  Avesta.  That  shall  be  a  prayer,  as  high  and 
pure  as  it  is  possible  for  the  soul  to  breathe.  Prays  the 
sacred  writer: 

"  The  reward  which  thou  hast  given  to  those  of  the  same  law  as  thyself, 
O  Lord,  All-knowing,  that  give  thou  to  us.  May  we  attain  to  that,  namely, 
union  with  thy  purity  for  all  eternity."  '^ 

The  Sacred  Books  of  the  Chinese. — Lao-tse  taught 
his  followers  "  to  recompense  injury  with  kindness,"  *  in 
this  respect  reaching  the  high-water  mark  of  Christianity. 

Confucius  taught  the  Golden  Rule  centuries  before 
Christ.  It  is  found  repeatedly  in  the  Analects,  the  Doc- 
trine of  the  Mean,  and  the  Great  Learning.  Tsze-Kung 
once  asked  him  the  question,  ''  Is  there  any  one  word 
which  may  serve  as  a  rule  of  practice  for  all  one's  life  ?  '* 

'  Yashts  xxii.  and  xxiv.  (slightly  abridged). 

'  Vazna  xi.  ^  Tao-te-king,  chap.  63. 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  SACRED  BOOKS.  2 J 

Confucius  replied :  "  Is  not  reciprocity  such  a  word  ? 
What  you  do  not  want  done  to  yourself,  do  not  do  to 
others."  '  It  is  often  urged  that  this  form  of  the  Golden 
Rule  is  negative,  and  therefore  much  lower  than  that  of 
Christ,  which  was  positive.  But  is  it  true  that  there 
is  nothing  positive  in  the  word  reciprocity  ?  Moreover, 
Professor  Douglas,  in  his  "  Confucianism  and  Taouism  " 
points  out  the  fact  (p.  103)  that  Confucius  certainly  gives 
the  Rule  in  one  place  in  a  positive  form,  where  he  says : 

"  In  the  way  of  the  superior  man  there  are  four  things,  to  none  of  which 
have  I  as  yet  attained  : — To  serve  my  father  as  I  would  require  my  son  to 
serve  me  ;  to  serve  my  prince  as  I  would  require  my  minister  to  serve  me  ; 
to  serve  my  elder  brother  as  I  would  require  my  younger  brother  to  serve 
me  ;  and  to  offer  first  to  friends  what  one  requires  of  them." ''' 

Other  teachings  of  Confucius  are  such  as  these : 

*'  Filial  piety  is  the  beginning  of  virtue,  and  brotherly  love  is  the  sequel 
of  virtue," 

"  Happy  union  with  wife  and  children  is  like  the  music  of  lutes  and  harps. 
And  when  there  is  concord  among  brethren  the  harmony  is  delightful  and 
enduring." 

"  No  virtue  is  higher  than  love  to  all  men,  and  there  is  no  loftier  aim  in 
government  than  to  profit  all  men."  ' 

*'Hold  faithfulness  and  sincerity  as  first  principles."  "  I  do  not  know 
how  a  man  is  to  get  on  without  faithfulness.  How  can  a  cart  be  made  to 
go  without  the  cross-bar  for  yoking  the  oxen  to  ?  "  * 

"  Worship  as  though  the  Deity  were  present." 

"  In  the  Book  of  Poetry  are  three  hundred  pieces,  but  the  design  of  them 
all  may  be  embraced  in  that  one  sentence,  *  Have  no  depraved  thoughts. '  " 

"Heaven  penetrates  to  the  bottom  of  our  hearts,  like  light  into  a  dark 
chamber.  We  must  conform  ourselves  to  it  until  we  are  like  two  instru- 
ments of  music  tuned  to  the  same  pitch.  Our  passions  shut  up  the  door  of 
our  souls  against  God." 

'  Lun-yu,  xv.  23.  "  Chung-yung,  xiii.  4. 

•  Shu-king.  *  Lun-yu. 


28  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

The  Sacred  Book  of  the  Buddhists. — The  following 
passages  from  the  Bible  of  the  Buddhists  are  not  unworthy 
of  a  place  in  our  own  Old  or  New  Testament : 

"  If  a  man  live  a  hundred  years  and  spend  the  whole  of  his  time  in  reli- 
gious attention  and  offerings  to  the  gods,  sacrificing  elephants  and  horses 
[the  most  costly  and  valued  offerings],  all  this  is  not  equal  to  one  act  of  pure 
love  in  saving  life." 

"Not  in  the  void  of  heaven,  not  in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  not  by  entering 
the  rocky  cliffs  of  the  mountains, — not  in  any  of  these  places,  or  by  any 
means,  can  a  man  escape  the  consequences  of  his  evil  deed." 

*'  A  man  vA\o  foolishly  does  me  wrong,  I  will  return  to  him  the  protection 
of  my  ungrudging  love.  The  more  evil  cometh  from  him,  the  more  good 
shall  go  from  me." 

"  Hatred  does  not  cease  by  hatred  at  any  time  ;  hatred  ceases  by  love." 

* '  All  that  we  are  is  the  result  of  what  we  have  thought  ;  it  is  founded  on 
our  thoughts,  it  is  made  up  of  our  thoughts.  If  a  man  speaks  or  acts  with 
an  evil  thought,  pain  follows  him  as  the  wheel  follows  the  foot  of  him  who 
draws  the  cart." 

*' As  the  bee  collects  honey  and  departs  without  injuring  the  flower,  so 
let  him  who  is  wise  dwell  on  the  earth." 

"  '  These  sons  belong  to  me,  and  this  wealth  belongs  to  me  ! ' — with  such 
thoughts  a  fool  is  tormented.  He  himself  does  not  belong  to  himself  ;  how 
much  less  sons  and  wealth  !  " 

"Let  no  man  think  lightly  of  evil,  saying  in  his  heart.  It  will  not  come 
nigh  me.  Let  no  man  think  lightly  of  good,  saying  in  his  heart,  It  will  not 
benefit  me.     Even  by  the  falling  of  water-drops  a  water-pot  is  filled." 

"  He  whose  evil  deeds  are  covered  by  good  deeds,  brightens  up  this 
world  like  the  moon  when  she  rises  from  behind  a  cloud." 

"  Let  a  man  overcome  anger  by  love,  evil  by  good,  the  greedy  by  liber- 
ality, the  liar  by  truth."  ' 

The  five  commandments  of  the  Buddhist  Bible  are : 

1.  Thou  shall  not  kill. 

2.  Thou  shalt  not  steal. 

'  These  selections  are  taken  from  the  Dhammapada,  one  of  the  books  of 
the  Tripitaka.  The  first  three  are  from  the  version  translated  from  the 
Chinese  by  Samuel  Beal,  and  the  rest  from  the  version  of  Max  MUller, 
translated  from  the  Pali  ("  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,"  vol.  x.). 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN  SACRED  BOOKS.  2g 

3.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,  or  any  impurity. 

4.  Thou  shalt  not  lie. 

5.  Thou  shalt  not  intoxicate  thyself. 

The  *'  Eight  Steps  "  which,  according  to  Buddha,  lead 
to  the  highest  happiness,  are  Right  Views,  Right 
Thoughts,  Right  Speech,  Right  Actions,  Right  Mode  of 
Livelihood,  Right  Exertion,  Right  Recollection,  Right 
Meditation. 

The  Sacred  Book  of  the  Mohammedans. — Says  the 
Koran,  the  Bible  of  the  Mohammedans: 

' '  None  of  you  can  be  a  true  believer  until  he  loves  for  his  brother  what 
he  loves  for  himself." 

The  following  passage  from  the  Koran  is  declared  by 
Emanuel  Deutsch  to  be  a  good  summary  of  that  sacred 
book: 

**  It  is  not  righteousness  to  turn  your  faces  toward  the  East,  or  West ;  for 
God's  is  the  East  as  well  as  the  West.  But  verily  he  is  righteous  who  be- 
lieves in  God,  in  the  day  of  judgment,  in  the  angels,  in  the  Book,  and  in 
the  prophets ;  who  bestows  his  wealth,  for  God's  sake,  upon  kindred,  and 
orphans,  and  the  poor,  and  the  homeless,  and  all  those  who  ask  ;  and  also 
upon  delivering  the  captives  ;  who  is  steadfast  in  prayer,  who  giveth  alms, 
who  standeth  firmly  by  his  covenants  when  he  has  once  firmly  entered  into 
them  ;  and  who  is  patient  in  adversity,  in  hardship,  and  in  times  of  trial. 
These  are  the  righteous  and  the  God-fearing."  ^ 

Another  passage  of  the  Koran  is  this: 

"  Say  there  is  one  God  alone —  , 

God  the  eternal : 
He  begetteth  not 

And  he  is  not  begotten  ; 
And  there  is  none  like  unto  him."  ' 

Thus  I  might  go  on  quoting  from  all  these  different 
Bibles  at  great  length;  and,  judging  from  the  sentiments 

^  Sutra  ii.  *  Sutra  cxii. 


30  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

expressed,  no  one  could  possibly  tell  which  I  was  quoting 
from — the  Bible  of  the  Brahmans,  the  Bible  of  the  Bud- 
dhists, the  Bible  of  the  Persians,  the  Chinese  Bible  of  Con- 
fucius, the  Chinese  Bible  of  Lao-tse,  the  Mohammedan 
Bible,  the  Jewish  Bible,  or  the  Christian  Bible — so  nearly- 
alike  are  all  in  their  great  central  ethical  and  spiritual 
teachings. 

In  short,  if  we  could  carry  our  study  far  enough,  we 
should  find  what  Mr.  Higginson  says  essentially  true, 
that  "  neither  faith,  nor  love,  nor  truth,  nor  disinterested- 
ness, nor  forgiveness,  nor  patience,  nor  peace,  nor  equal- 
ity, nor  education,  nor  missionary  effort,  nor  prayer,  nor 
honesty,  nor  the  sentiment  of  brotherhood,  nor  reverence 
for  woman,  nor  the  spirit  of  humility,  nor  the  fact  of 
martyrdom,  nor  any  other  good  thing  is  monopolized  by 
any  form  of  faith.  All  religions  recognize,  more  or  less 
remotely,  these  principles;  all  do  something  to  exemplify,, 
something  to  dishonor  them."  ' 

'  "  Sympathy  of  Religions,"  p.  25.  For  an  extended  comparison  of  the 
various  sacred  books  and  religions  of  the  world  with  respect  to  their  moral 
and  spiritual  teachings,  see  first  of  all,  of  course,  the  sacred  books  them- 
selves, now  mainly  accessible  in  good  translations  (in  the  "  Sacred  Books  of 
the  East  "  series,  and  elsewhere)  ;  also  the  writings  of  the  great  specialists 
upon  each  separate  religion.  The  following  books  of  a  more  general 
character  may  also  be  mentioned  as  valuable  :  Tide's  "  History  of  Religion  "; 
De  la  Saussaye's  "  Manual  of  the  Science  of  Religion  ";  Clarke's  "  Ten  Great 
Religions";  the  Hibbert  Lectures  (particularly  the  series  by  Muller,  Renouf. 
Davids,  Kuenen,  and  Sayce)  ;  the  Gifford  Lectures  ;  a  series  of  brief  and 
inexpensive  works  entitled  "  Non-Christian  Religious  Systems,"  including 
books  on  Buddhism  by  Davids,  Buddhism  in  China  by  Beal,  Confucianism 
and  Taouism  by  Douglas,  Hinduism  by  WilHams,  Islam  and  its  Founder 
by  Stobat,  and  The  Koran  by  Muir;  Johnson's  "Oriental  Religions";  Max 
Miiller's  writings  ;  Barth's  "Religions  of  India";  Warren's  "  Buddhism  in 
Translations  " ;  L.  H.  Jordan's  "  Comparative  Religion  " ;  Carpenter's  "  The 
Place  of  Christianity  among  the  Religions  of  the  World." 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN   SACRED  BOOKS.  3 1 

The  Difference  one  of  Degree,  not  of  Kind. — Of 
course,  I  would  not  be  understood  as  claiming  that  all 
the  great  sacred  books  of  the  world  stand  on  a  level,  or 
that  their  teachings  are  identical.  They  do  not  stand  on 
a  level,  and  in  a  thousand  things  their  teachings  are  not 
identical.  It  is  only  a  candid  statement  of  the  judgment 
of  the  scholarship  and  religious  criticism  of  the  world  to 
say  that  our  own  Bible,  particularly  our  New  Testament, 
is  greatly  superior  to  any  of  the  Bibles  of  so-called 
heathen  peoples.  But  the  difference  is  one  of  degree, 
not  of  kind. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  passages  quoted 
above  are  select  passages — ethical  and  spiritual  gems, 
culled  from  vast  expanses  of  literature,  much  of  which  is 
barren  and  dreary  to  an  extent  which  those  persons  whose 
reading  of  sacred  scriptures  has  been  confined  to  our  own 
Bible  can  little  understand.  The  contents  of  the  world's 
sacred  books  range  in  quality  all  the  way  from  the  pas- 
sages which  we  have  quoted,  down  to  the  basest  supersti- 
tions, the  dreariest  platitudes,  the  most  childish  follies. 
In  comparing  non-Christian  Bibles  with  our  own,  of  course, 
this  needs  to  be  borne  in  mind  if  we  would  make  our  com- 
parison fair  and  candid.  But  just  in  the  degree  in  which 
we  make  our  comparison  fair  and  candid,  in  that  degree 
shall  we  see  clearly  two  truths.  One  is  this,  that  all  the 
great  sacred  books  of  mankind  (our  own  included)  contain 
enough  in  common  of  things  superficial,  transient,  and 
unworthy,  so  that  no  sacred  book  can  say  to  the  rest, 
"  I  am  perfect,  or  wholly  of  God  ";  the  other  truth  is, 
that  all  contain  enough  in  common  of  things  deep  and 
high,  and  eternally  true,  so  that  no  one  can  say  to  any 
other,  "  You  are  worthless,  or  wholly  of  man  or  of  the 
devil." 


32  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

Well  does  Matthew  Arnold  write  : 

**  Children  of  men  !  the  Unseen  Power  whose  eye 
Forever  doth  accompany  mankind, 
Hath  looked  on  no  religion  scornfully 

That  man  did  ever  find. 
"Which  hath  not  taught  weak  wills  how  much  they  can  ? 
Which  has  not  fallen  on  the  dry  heart  like  rain  ? 
Which  has  not  cried  to  sunk,  self-weary  man, 

'  Thou  must  be  born  again  '  ?" 

So,  then,  to  the  question  with  which  this  book  sets 
out,  "What  is  our  Bible?"  we  have  our  first  answer,  to 
wit :  It  is  one — beyond  question  it  is  on  the  whole  the 
highest  and  best,  but  it  is  one — of  the  six  or  eight  great 
sacred  books  or  Bibles  of  the  world. 

Consequences  of  this  Discovery. — Some  would  have 
us  believe  that  this  conclusion  is  inimical  to  religion.  The 
truth  is,  it  is  very  far  from  that.  Rather  does  it  help  us 
to  see  that  religion  is  a  vastly  broader  and  therefore  a 
vastly  richer  thing  than  Jew  or  Christian  or  Pagan  has 
been  willing  to  believe.*     Nations  and  peoples  have  ever 

^  **  It  gave  men  larger  and  grander  views  of  God  when  they  learnt  that 
the  earth  is  one  among  many  bodies  circling  round  the  sun,  and  that  the  sun 
himself  is  one  of  the  numberless  suns  that  are  strewn  as  star  dust  in  the 
heavens  ;  and  (rightly  viewed)  it  cannot  fail  to  give  each  of  us,  whose  na- 
ture is  made  to  trust,  a  larger  trust  in,  and  more  loving  thought  of  Him,  to 
learn  that  our  religion  is  one  among  many  religions,  and  that  nowhere  is 
there  an  altogether  godless  race.  To  use  a  homely  figure,  the  religions  of 
the  world  are  like  human  faces,  all  of  which  have  something  in  common — 
nose,  eyes,  mouth,  and  so  on  ;  while  all  differ,  some  being  more  beautiful 
than  others.  But  wherever  any  religion  exists  which  has  struck  its  roots 
deep  down  into  the  life  of  a  people,  there  must  be  some  truth  in  it  which 
has  nurtured  them,  and  which  is  worth  the  seeking  ;  for  the  hunger  of  the 
soul  of  man  can  no  more  be  satisfied  with  a  lie,  than  the  hunger  of  his 
body  can  be  appeased  with  stones"  (Clodd's  "  Childhood  of  Religions," 
pp.  8,  9). 


SIMILARITIES  BETWEEN   SACRED   BOOKS.  33 

claimed  to  have  monopolies  in  religion  ;  ever  have  they 
denied  that  it  had  any  fountains  beyond  their  own  proph- 
ets, priests,  and  sacred  books.  But  in  the  light  of  the 
scholarship  of  to-day  we  see  that  all  such  ideas  are  narrow 
and  puerile.  Religion  is  as  universal  as  sunshine,  or  love, 
or  God.  Its  fountains  are  in  every  land  ;  its  prophets 
dwell  under  all  skies.  It  has  given  mankind  not  one 
sacred  book,  but  many. 

We  may  no  longer  believe  that  God  chose  out  one 
little,  isolated  people  of  the  world  to  be  the  sole  recip- 
ients of  his  revelation  and  his  salvation,  leaving  all  the 
other  peoples  and  nations  of  the  earth  neglected  and  un- 
cared  for.'  The  study  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world, 
which  is  going  forward  so  rapidly,  is  giving  birth  to  the 
worthier  faith,  that  God  is  the  God  of  the  whole  earth. 
As  Whittier  sings : 

**  All  souls  that  struggle  and  aspire, 

All  hearts  of  prayer,  by  Thee  are  lit ; 
And,  dim  or  clear,  thy  tongues  of  fire 
On  dusky  tribes  and  centuries  sit." 

Or,  as  Saint  Peter  declares :  *'  God  is  no  respecter  of 
persons  [that  is,  does  not  have  pets  and  favorites  among 
his  human  children]  ;  but  in  every  land  he  that  reverences 
God  and  works  righteousness  is  accepted  with  him." 

*  See  Kuenen's  "Religion  of  Israel,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  5-12;  Samuel  John- 
son's "India"  (in  "Oriental  Religions"),  Introduction,  pp.  1-34;  Max  Miil- 
ler's  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  "  ;  Carpenter's  "  Place  of  Christianity 
among  the  Religions  of  the  World,"  1904;  Pfleiderer's  "Religion  and  His- 
toric Faiths,"  1907. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE   HEBREW   LAND   AND    PEOPLE. 

A  SECOND  answer  that  competent  scholarship  makes 
to  the  question,  What  is  the  Bible?  is  this  :  It  is  not  one 
book,  but  many ;  indeed,  properly  speaking,  it  is  not  a 
book  at  all,  but  a  collection  of  literature,  or  a  library. 

The  word  Bible  comes  from  the  Greek  ra  ^iftXia 
(plural),  which  means  the  books,  or  the  little  books.  Thus 
in  its  very  etymology  it  reveals  the  fact  that  it  is  com- 
posed of  7nany  distinct  writings. 

As  the  Hindu  sacred  books  are  collections  of  the 
early  religious  literature  of  the  Hindus,  and  as  the  Zend- 
Avesta  or  Persian  sacred  book  is  a  collection  of  the  early 
religious  literature  of  the  Persians,  so  our  Old  Testament 
is  a  collection  of  the  early  religious  literature  of  the 
Hebrew  people,  and  our  New  Testament  is  a  collection 
of  religious  literature  of  the  same  people,  springing  from 
a  later  age. 

If  we  would  get  a  proper  knowledge  of  this  double 
collection  of  sacred  writings,  several  things  need  to  be 
clearly  understood. 

The  Hebrew  Land, — First  a  word  of  inquiry  should 
be  made  about  the  land  from  which  it  came. 

If  there  is  anything  in  the  theory  that  the  physical 
environment  of  a  nation  or  race  tends  to  influence  its 
intellectual  and  moral  development  (as  doubtless  there 
is),  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  it  illustrated  in  the 
case  of  the  ancient  Hebrews. 


THE  HEBREW  LAND  AND  PEOPLE.  35 

The  largest  body  of  land  in  the  world  is  that  which 
makes  up  the  three  continents  of  the  eastern  hemisphere. 
At  almost  the  exact  centre  of  these  three  continents — at 
the  very  place  where,  if  Europe  and  Africa  were  a  little 
projected,  the  three  would  meet — lies  the  land  of  Pales- 
tine. It  is  a  mere  dot  on  the  map  of  the  world,  yet  in 
the  moral  and  religious  life  of  mankind  no  other  land  has 
been  so  influential.  Has  its  location  here,  so  literally  at 
the  "  centre  of  the  world,"  had  nothing  to  do  with  this  ? 

All  the  physical  characteristics  of  ancient  Palestine 
were  such  as  would  naturally  tend  to  make  a  vigorous  and 
independent  people.  It  was  a  land  of  hills,  valleys,  swift 
streams,  fertile  plains,  picturesque  and  rugged  mountains, 
and  rimmed  on  one  side  by  a  great  sea.  Such  a  land 
should  produce  strong-minded,  nature-loving  men.  In 
mountain  lands  we  expect  to  find  lovers  of  freedom.  Is 
it  strange  that  we  should  find  here  a  race  sturdily  inde- 
pendent ? 

Palestine  was  a  singularly  shut-in  land.  On  the  north 
were  the  Lebanon  ranges  of  lofty  mountains ;  on  the 
east  the  wide  Syrian  desert ;  on  the  south  another  desert, 
and  on  the  west  a  great  sea  with  scarcely  a  harbor.  It 
was  just  the  kind  of  a  country,  therefore,  to  develop  a 
self-centred  people — a  people  capable  of  standing  alone, 
and  working  out  a  great  career.  Yet,  while  it  was  thus 
so  remarkably  isolated,  and  protected  from  forces  that 
might  break  down  its  strong  individuality,  it  was  to  an 
unusual  degree  in  touch  with  great  world-influences. 

Just  beyond  the  narrow  southern  wilderness  was  Egypt, 
with  its  art  and  letters  and  learning,  and  its  civilization 
the  most  venerable  and  august  in  the  ancient  world.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  eastern  desert  were  mighty  Babylon 
and  Assyria.     Contiguous  on  the  northwest  was  Phoeni- 


36  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE.. 

cia,  the  leading  commercial  nation  of  antiquity.  Across 
the  western  sea  were  glorious  Greece  and  all-conquering 
Rome.  Into  quiet  Palestine  came  influences  from  all 
these.  Indeed,  many  a  time  it  was  forced  to  succumb 
to  the  armies  of  its  mighty  neighbors.  And  in  times  of 
peace  it  was  a  highway  for  the  great  caravans  which  were 
the  bearers  of  the  world's  wealth  between  Mesopotamia, 
Persia,  and  India,  on  the  east,  and  Egypt,  Tyre,  and  all 
the  Mediterranean  cities  and  lands,  on  the  west. 

Thus  it  was  near,  indeed  at  the  very  focus  of,  all  the 
greatest  empires  and  centres  of  civilization  of  the  old 
world.  Yet  it  was  not  of  them.  It  was  touched  in  deep 
and  powerful  ways  by  all,  yet  was  enough  apart  from  all 
to  have  its  own  life  not  overpowered  by  them,  but  only 
stimulated,  broadened,  quickened,  deepened.  Hence  it 
was  exactly  the  land  to  develop  the  intensest,  and  in 
one  sense  the  narrowest,  of  religions — yet  a  religion  des- 
tined to  unfold  into  the  broadest,  nay,  into  the  one  really 
universal,  religion  of  the  world. 

So  much  for  the  stage^  with  its  scenery  and  appoint- 
ments, on  which  the  drama  recorded  in  the  Bible  was 
played.     Now  a  word  about  \.\vq  players. 

The  Hebrew  People. — Who  were  the  people  that 
played  the  drama  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  ? 

Among  the  families  of  mankind  two  stand  out  pre- 
eminent. These  are  the  Aryan  or  Indo-European  family, 
and  the  Semitic.  To  the  Aryan  family  belong  the  Hindus 
and  Persians  of  Asia,  and  the  Greeks,  Romans,  Russians, 
Germans,  English,  French,  and  some  other  less  important 
peoples  of  Europe.  To  the  Semitic  family  belong  the 
Hebrews  and  their  kinsfolk,  such  as  the  Babylonians, 
Assyrians,  Aramaeans  or  Syrians,  Phoenicians,  Canaan- 
Ites,  and  Arabs. 


THE  HEBREW  LAND  AND  PEOPLE,  37 

Where  the  Semitic  family  originated  is  not  certainly 
known.  Most  likely  it  was  in  the  highlands  of  central 
Arabia.  From  this  region  seem  to  have  gone  forth 
migrations  to  the  northeast,  into  the  valleys  of  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  as  early  as  two  thousand  five 
hundred  or  three  thousand  years  before  Christ.*  These 
were  the  ancestors  of  the  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  peo- 
ples. A  little  later  another  migration  pushed  northwest 
to  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  founded  Tyre  and 
Sidon  and  the  PhcEnician  nation.  About  the  same  time 
other  Semitic  tribes  found  their  way  to  Palestine,  driv- 
ing out  the  preceding  inhabitants  and  settling  there. 
These  were  the  Canaanites,  who  were  in  the  land  when 
the  Hebrews  entered.  Other  migrations  pushed  in  other 
directions.  The  immediate  ancestors  of  the  Hebrews 
seem  to  have  lived  in  Mesopotamia — the  land  between 
the  two  great  rivers  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 

The  first  Hebrew  migration  into  Palestine  may  have 
occurred  as  early  as  2000-1700  B.C.,  a  hint  of  which  we 
get  in  the  tradition  of  Abraham.  Later  there  seems  to 
have  been  a  temporary  sojourn  of  the  Israelitish  branch 
of  the  Hebrew  family  in  Egypt.  From  Egypt  it  returned 
into  Palestine  for  a  permanent  residence,  about  1300  B.C., 
under  the  leadership  of  Moses.  Here  the  history  of  the 
Jewish  people  properly  begins.  Our  study  of  the  origin 
and  growth  of  the  Bible  will  be  a  study  of  the  career  of 
this  people  for  nearly  fifteen  hundred  years. 

And  a  remarkable  people  we  shall  find  the  Jews  to  be. 
In  war,  in  politics,  in  art,  in  philosophy,  in  literature,  other 
than  religious,  they  did  not  excel.  Among  their  own 
Semitic  kinsmen,  the  Phoenicians  far  surpassed  them  in 

1  There  are  definite  Babylonian  dates"as  early  as  3800  B.C. 


38  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

commerce  and  industrial  enterprise,  and  the  Assyrians 
and  Babylonians  as  military  conquerors  and  founders  of 
empires.  But  in  religion  their  genius  was  supreme.  It 
appears  not  to  be  extravagant  to  say  that  in  the  ancient 
world  they  attained  to  an  eminence  as  much  above  all 
other  peoples  of  the  <:/r^«;«-Mediterranean  world  in  reli- 
gion, as  did  Greece  in  art,  philosophy,  and  science,  or 
Rome  in  war  and  government. 

But  it  was  something  gradually  attained — grown  to. 
We  shall  never  understand  the  Bible  unless  we  first  get 
a  clear  idea  of  this.  The  Jews  no  more  occupied  their 
high  religious  elevation  at  the  outset  than  did  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  theirs.  All  came  up  by  long  and  slow  pro- 
cesses of  growth  and  development  from  humble  and  rude 
beginnings.  Just  as  we  can  trace  Greece  back  to  the 
time  when  she  had  no  art,  no  science,  and  no  philosophy ; 
and  Rome  back  to  the  time  when  her  people  were  only  a 
handful  of  well-nigh  lawless  barbarians ;  so  we  can  trace 
the  Jewish  people  back  to  a  stage  of  religious  develop- 
ment equally  primitive  and  low,  when  they  were  not 
monotheists,  when  their  gods  were  nature-forces,  when 
bloody  sacrifices  formed  the  chief  part  of  their  worship, 
when  even  human  sacrifices  were  not  unknown ;  when,  in 
short,  their  religion  was  scarcely,  if  at  all,  to  be  distin- 
guished from  that  of  other  Semitic  tribes  round  about 
them. 

The  Bible  is  the  varied  and  many-sided  record — often 
unconscious,  but  for  that  reason  all  the  more  wonderful — 
of  Israel's  progress  from  this  low  primitive  condition  up 
to  the  splendid  height  of  that  ethical  and  spiritual  religion 
which  we  find  in  Jesus  and  Paul.  It  is  the  invaluable 
achievement  of  the  higher  biblical  criticism  of  the  past 
fifty  years  that  it  has  made  clear  and  indisputable  both 


DATES   OF   IMPORTANT   HISTORICAL   EVENTS, 

BIBLICAL  AND   OTHER. 

Some  of  these  dates  are  only  approximate. 

In   Babylonia  and  Egypt  powerful  Kingdoms  and  ad-  B.  C. 

vanced  Civilization  as  early  as 5000-4000 

Sargon,  ELing  of  Akkad,  and  his  son  Naram-Sin,  unify 
Babylonia  and  found  a  Semitic  Empire,  which  in- 
cludes S\Tia  and  Palestine  about 3800 

In  Egypt  the  great  pyramid  at  Gizeh  built  by  King  Khufu 

or  Cheops.     The  Book  of  the  Dead  written  ....  4000-3500 

Code  of  Hammurabi  of  Babylon       2250 

Palestine  under  Babylonian  rule.     Much  culture,  largely 

of  Babylonian  origin.     Babylonian  script  in  use  .    .  2000-1500 
Migrations  of  Semitic  Tribes,  ancestors  of  the  Hebrews, 
gi\ing  rise  to  the  Abraham,  Jacob,  and  Joseph   leg- 
ends of  Genesis,  possibly  2000-1600,  but  more  likely  .  1 700-1400 

Palestine  under  Egyptian  rule 1400 

Moses,  and  Exodus  of  Israelitish  tribes  from  Egypt  about  .  1300 
Conquest  of  Canaan ;    Government  of  tribes  by  Judges  or 

Chiefs  (Period  of  the  Judges) 1 300-1030 

Samuel  (Judge  and  Prophet).    Consolidation  of  tribes    .    ,  1050 

Monarchy  established.     Saul  the  first  King 1030-1010 

David  King 1010-973 

Solomon  becomes  King 973 

^\ssyria,   brilliant    historical   epoch.     E.xtensive  Assyrian 

conquests  in  western  Asia loth  century 

Homeric  Age  in  Greece loth  to  9th  century 

Solomon's  Temple  in  Jerusalem  dedicated 963 

Division  of   Kingdom   into   "Israel"  in  the  North  and 

"Judah"  in  the  South 930 

Elijah,  about 860 

The  "Moabite  Stone,"  believed  to  come  from  about  .    .    .  850 

Elisha,  about 820 

Foundation  of  Rome  (supposed) 753 

Great  Creative  Age  of  Hebrew  Prophecy  (Amos,  Hosea, 

Isaiah,  and  Micah) 8th  century 

Kingdom  of  "Israel"  overthrown  by  Assyria;  many  taken 

away  captives  ("Lost  Tribes") 721 

Hezekiah's  Reformation,  about 7^5 

Sennacherib  of  Ass}Tia  devastates  much  of  Judah.  Jeru- 
salem saved 7°^ 

Greece  rising  into  importance    .....            7th  century 


"Book  of  Law"  discovered  in  Temple  (followed  by  Jo-  B.  C. 

siah's  Reformation)      621 

Jeremiah 626-580 

Fall  of  Nineveh 5q5 

Solon,  in  Greece 640-1;  i;q 

Lao-tse,  in  China,  later  part  of 6th  century 

Buddha,  in  India,  possibly ^  623-556 

Nebuchadrezzar  takes  Jerusalem ^07 

Jersualem   destroyed;     Kingdom   of   Judah   broken   up; 

many  Jews  carried  into  exile  in  Babylonia 586 

Babylon  Captured  by  Cyrus  the  Persian 539 

Return  of  Jews  from  exile,  led  by  Zerubbabel 536 

Period  of  Persian  Rule  of  Palestine 536-333 

Confucius,  in  China ,  550-478 

Dedication  of  Second  Temple  in  Jerusalem 516 

Ezra  comes  to  Palestine  with  many  more  exiles 458 

Influence  of  Priests  and  Scribes  increases,  and  influence  of 

prophets  declines      5th  century  and  on 

Synagogues  multiply  and  grow  in  influence  .  .  4th  century  and  on 
Translation  of  Old  Testament  into  Greek  in  Alexandria 

(the  Septuagint)        250-100 

Desecration  of  Temple  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes:  Altar 

of  Zeus  set  up  in  Holy  Place 168 

Revolt  of  the  Maccabees 167 

Purification  and  Rededication  of  Temple 165 

Maccabean  Period:  Jewish  Independence 167-63 

Rise  of  the  Jewish  Sects  (Pharisees,  Sadducees  and  Es- 

senes)      2nd  century 

Cicero,  in  Rome 106-43 

Pompey  captures  Jerusalem.     Judea  becomes  a  Roman 

Province 63 

Hillel,  the  great  Jewish  Doctor  of  the  Law    ....      70  B.C.-6  A.D. 

Herod  rules  Palestine,  subject  to  Rome 37-4  B.  C. 

Augustus  Emperor  at  Rome 30  B.  C.-14  A.  D. 

Philo  of  Alexandria 20  B.C. -about  50  A.D. 

Herod  builds  Temple  (the  third)  in  Jerusalem 19-10  B.C. 

Jesus  Born 5  B.C. 

A.D. 

Public  ministry  of  Jesus 28-30 

Crucifixion  of  Jesus 30 

Josephus 30-100 

Paul's  Conversion 35  ? 

Paul's  Missionary  Journeys „    .    .    .  48-63? 

Martyrdom  of  James  in  Jerusalem  about   .......  63 

Paul's  Death  in  Rome 63-66 

Destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans 70 


THE  HEBREW  LAND  AND  PEOPLE,  39 

the  fact  and  the  main  steps  of  this  remarkable  develop- 
ment. 

The  History  of  the  Hebrew  People  in  Bible  Times. 
- — The  history  of  the  Hebrew  people  in  Bible  times 
divides  naturally  into  six  periods.  These  may  be  de- 
scribed briefly,  as  follows : 

(i.)  The  Formative  Period. — This  begins  with  the 
earliest  records,  and  comes  down  to  about  the  end  of  the 
ninth  century  B.C.  During  this  time  the  separate  tribes 
are  slowly  drawing  together  and  becoming  knitted  into 
one  people,  with  one  government,  and  a  slowly  improv- 
ing religion.  They  discard  various  gods  that  they  have 
formerly  worshiped,  and  adopt  Jehovah  as  their  national 
deity.  They  are  not  yet  monotheists ;  they  regard  the 
gods  of  other  nations  as  real  beings,  and  join  much  in 
the  worship  of  the  deities  of  the  Canaanites ;  and  yet 
they  accept  Jehovah  as  the  God  of  Israel  alone,  and  cling 
to  and  worship  him  as  such.  They  establish  and  main- 
tain a  priesthood,  and  build  a  temple.  There  is  yet 
much  violence  and  cruelty,  and  moral  ideas  and  practices 
are  low,  but  there  is  progress.  They  set  up  a  monarchy 
which,  after  a  hundred  years,  divides  into  two — the 
northern  kingdom  of  Israel  and  the  southern  kingdom  of 
Judah. 

No  book  of  the  Bible  comes  from  this  period,  though 
fragments  found  in  several  books  doubtless  do. 

(2.)  The  Prophetic  Period. — This  extends  from  the  end 
of  the  ninth  to  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  B.C. 
The  Northern  Kingdom  lasts  nearly  two  centuries  and  a 
half,  until  721  B.C.,  and  then  is  overthrown,  and  many  of 
its  people  are  carried  away  captives  into  Assyria.  The 
Southern  Kingdom  continues  a  century  and  a  quarter 
longer,  when  it  is  conquered,  and  its  capital,  Jerusalem, 


40  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE. 

is  destroyed  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  its  leading  inhab- 
itants are  removed  to  Babylon,  586  B.C.  Thus  this  period 
is  one  of  political  disaster. 

But  in  the  development  of  religion  it  is  the  most 
important  and  glorious  in  the  entire  history  of  the 
Hebrew  people.  Into  this  period  falls  most  of  that 
remarkable  work  of  the  prophets  which  resulted  in  the 
destruction  of  all  other  kinds  of  worship  except  that  of 
Jehovah,  and  at  last  lifted  the  religion  of  the  people  up 
into  true  monotheism— ethical  monotheism.  Well  has 
this  been  called  the  period  of  ''  fresh,  creative  youth  of 
Israel."  Certainly  the  Hebrew  religious  genius  never 
manifested  itself  with  greater  spontaneity  and  power 
than  in  these  remarkable  centuries.  From  this  period 
come  the  prophecies  of  Amos,  Hosea,  the  first  Isaiah, 
Micah,  Nahum,  Zephaniah,  Habakkuk,  Jeremiah  (in  part), 
Deuteronomy,  a  considerable  number  of  lyrical  religious 
pieces,  or  Psalms,  and  a  part  of  the  Proverbs. 

(3.)  The  Transitional  Period  of  the  Exile. — This  is 
generally  supposed  to  have  been  of  seventy  years'  dura- 
tion, but,  strictly  speaking,  it  lasted  only  about  fifty  or 
fifty-one  years;  to  wit,  from  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  587 
B.C.,  to  the  return  of  the  Jews  into  Canaan,  536  B.C.  It 
possesses  some  of  the  characteristics  of  the  preceding 
period,  as  is  seen  by  the  fact  that  it  gives  birth  to  such 
important  prophetical  writings  as  those  of  Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel,  Obadiah,  and  the  second  Isaiah.  Yet  the  con- 
ditions which  produced  prophecy  are  fast  passing  away. 
Prophecy  is  dying.  The  eyes  of  the  nation  are  begin- 
ning to  be  turned  from  the  future  toward  the  past.  We 
are  on  the  verge  of  an  age  whose  supreme  desire  will 
be  to  conserve,  not  to  create.  Reflection  is  taking  the 
place  of   spontaneity.     Unconsciously  men  are  turning 


THE  HEBREW  LAND  AND  PEOPLE.  4 1 

from  the  living  oracle  in  the  soul  and  asking  for  written 
oracles.  Thus  we  see  these  Exile  years  produce  not  only 
the  prophecies  just  referred  to,  and  many  psalms,  but 
Lamentations,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings,  and  the  "  Priestly 
Document,"  '«/'"  (see  following  pp.  73-76). 

(4.)  The  Priestly  Period. — This  extends  from  the  return 
of  the  Jews  from  Babylon  down  to  the  second  century 
B.C.,  when  the  last  Old  Testament  books  were  written. 
As  soon  as  the  Jews  return  to  their  own  land  they  eagerly 
rebuild  their  temple  in  Jerusalem,  and  resume  in  a  sense 
their  national  life.  And  yet,  from  this  time  on,  with  the 
exception  of  the  one  brief,  shining  interval  of  independ- 
ence under  the  heroic  Maccabees  (second  century),  they 
are  a  subject  people,  wearing  successively  the  yoke,  often 
heavy  and  always  terribly  galling,  of  Persia,  Greece,  Syria, 
Egypt,  and  Rome. 

A  little  of  the  old  prophetic  spirit  lingers  on  into  this 
period.  Haggai  and  Malachi  come  forward  to  speak 
their  word.  But,  as  a  whole,  the  spirit  that  rules  now  is 
priestly  and  legal.  "  Israel  has  sought  the  one  God  and 
found  him,  and  now  feels  that  its  task  is  to  maintain  his 
service  and  secure  his  favor  by  following  rules.'"  ^  The 
priests  are  in  the  ascendant ;  soon  the  scribes  rise  to  great 
power  ;  strong  and  growing  emphasis  is  placed  upon  cere- 
monial. In  the  preceding  period  of  the  Exile  the  priests 
began  to  draw  up  ritual  codes  (as  seen  in  the  book  of 
Ezekiel).  This  work  of  code-making  they  continue  right 
on  into  this  period,  until  the  Levitical  Law  is  completed, 
perhaps  a  little  before  the  year  4CK)  B.C. 

From  this  period  come  (besides  Haggai  and  Malachi) 
Ruth,  Nehemiah,  Ezra,  Joshua,  Job,  Jonah,  the  Pentateuch 

1  Toy's  "  History  of  the  Religion  of  Israel/'  p.  3. 


42  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

(in  its  final  form),  Chronicles,  Joel,  Esther,  Daniel,  Psalms 
and  Proverbs  (completed),  Ecclesiastes,  Song  of  Solomon. 

(5.)  The  Period  of  the  Interval  between  the  Two 
Testaments. — We  pass  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the 
New  by  a  leap  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  This  in- 
terval is  often  thought  of  as  a  time  of  no  importance, 
almost  a  blank  in  Jewish  history.  But  this  is  a  mistake. 
It  was  in  this  period  that  the  Old  Testament  canon  was 
completed.  It  was  at  this  time  that  those  great  schools 
of  Jewish  learning  were  established  out  of  whose  labors 
later  grew  the  Talmud.  Still  more  important,  this  was  a 
time  when  all  Palestine  was  seething  with  social,  political, 
and  religious  thought  as  perhaps  never  before  ;  when 
messianic  and  apocalyptic  ideas,  and  ideas  of  religious 
socialism,  were  everywhere  in  the  air ;  when  there  was 
not  only  wide-spread  political  discontent  with  subjection 
to  Rome,  but  a  growing  distrust  of  the  ceremonial  and 
legal  narrowness  of  the  established  Jewish  religion,  and  an 
eager  expectancy  of  something  better  to  come,  and  to 
come  speedily.  We  now  see  that  all  this  was  simply 
premonitory.  It  was  Christianity,  the  New  Judaism, 
growing  within  the  womb  of  the  Old  Church,  and  waiting 
uneasily  to  be  born. 

(6.)  The  New  Testament  Period. — We  may  begin 
this  period  with  the  birth  of  Christ,  although  no  New 
Testament  book  is  written  until  about  fifty  years  after, 
when  Paul  writes  the  first  of  his  Epistles.  We  may  prop- 
erly close  it  with  the  last  New  Testament  book,  the  so- 
called  "  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,*'  whose  date  is  probably 
about  150A.D.  Thus  its  length  is  approximately  a  century 
and  a  half. 

Into  the  first  thirty  or  thirty-five  years  falls  the  life  o{ 
Jesus,  in  whom  the  Hebrew  prophetic  spirit  reappears,  and 


THE   HEBRE  W  LAND   AND   PEOPLE.  43 

rises  to  its  highest  and  crowning  expression.  After  the 
death  of  Jesus  the  new  religion  is  taught  wholly  by  word 
of  mouth  for  a  generation  ;  then  such  recollections  and 
traditions  of  the  Master  as  are  best  accredited  begin  to 
be  committed  to  writing ;  meanwhile,  letters  and  other 
writings  which  seem  valuable,  from  the  pens  of  disciples 
and  others,  make  their  appearance,  and  some  of  them  are 
preserved  by  the  young  Christian  churches.  By  and  by 
the  best  of  these  writings  are  gathered  together ;  little  by 
little  sacredness  attaches  to  them  ;  they  come  to  be  a  new 
sacred  book — the  New  Testament — which  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple generally  reject,  but  which  the  Christians  place  beside 
the  Old  Testament  as  a  second  Book  of  God, 

During  this  period  Jerusalem  is  destroyed  with  a  ter- 
rible destruction,  not  only  once,  but  again;  and  the  Jews, 
after  incredible  sufferings,  are  scattered  abroad  over  the 
earth,  never  again  to  have  a  secure  abiding  place  in  the 
land  of  their  fathers  and  of  their  sacred  oracles.  Yet,  in 
all  the  centuries  since,  nothing  has  ever  been  able  to  sep- 
arate them  from  their  faith.  To-day  they  are  as  distinct 
and  remarkable  a  people  as  when  they  dwelt  in  Palestine 
two  thousand  years  ago,  loving  their  religion  with  as  pas- 
sionate a  devotion  as  in  the  days  of  their  national  glor}^ 

Christianity  has  fared  hardly  better  in  Palestine  than 
did  the  parent  religion.  Long  before  the  end  of  the 
New  Testament  period  its  chief  strength  was  in  Gentile 
lands.  This  tendency  continued.  Now  Christianity  is  a 
world  religion  ;  but  its  greatest  triumphs  have  been  won 
not  among  the  people  that  gave  it  birth,  not  even  among 
any  of  the  Semitic  peoples,  but  among  Greeks,  Romans, 
Franks,  Germans,  Slavs,  Scandinavians,  Anglo-Saxons 
— the  peoples  that  make  up  the  European  branch  of  the 
great  Aryan  family. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  BIBLE  AS   LITERATURE. 

We  have  found  the  Bible  to  be  a  collection  of  litera- 
ture. Let  us  inquire  for  some  of  its  leading  character- 
istics as  such. 

Its  Variety. — Perhaps  nothing  about  our  sacred  volume 
is  more  striking  than  the  variety  of  its  contents.  In  this 
it  surpasses  all  other  sacred  books.  This  variety  grows 
out  of  the  fact  that  it  is  so  truly  a  literature,  and  not  a 
theological  or  ecclesiastical  treatise,  or  indeed  a  single 
book  of  any  kind.  Springing  not  from  any  one  mind, 
but  from  scores  and  hundreds  ;  not  from  one  age,  but  from 
many ;  and  being  an  embodiment  of  the  very  life  of  the 
Hebrew  people,  it  could  not  fail  to  be  as  many-sided  as 
human  life  itself.  Thus  it  is  not  strange  that  we  find  it 
greatly  varied  not  only  in  form,  in  matter,  and  in  excel- 
lence of  literary  work,  but  also  in  ethical  and  spiritual 
quality. 

There  is  hardly  a  form  of  literature  known  that  is  not 
represented  here.  At  the  beginning  of  the  collection, 
under  the  name  of  history,  we  have  an  extended  group 
of  legends,  traditions,  accounts  of  persons  and  events  in 
the  main  imaginary.  Farther  on  we  come  to  real  history, 
yet  even  with  parts  of  this  we  find  intertwined  a  legend- 
ary element  which  has  to  be  carefully  separated.  Then, 
too,  we  find  poetry  of  various  kinds,  as  lyric,  didactic, 
dramatic ;  fierce  war  songs,  tender  love  songs,  sublime 
descriptions  of  nature,  devout  hymns  of  worship.     We 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE,  45 

find  biographies,  some  brief,  some  extended  ;  collections 
of  laws  ;  state  documents  ;  chronologies  and  genealogies  ; 
collections  of  proverbs  of  wisdom  ;  accounts  of  religious 
institutions  and  ceremonials  ;  romances  ;  parables  ;  specu- 
lations about  the  past ;  apocalyptic  visions  of  the  fu- 
ture ;  letters  ;  religious  utterances  of  various  kinds,  as 
of  preacher,  reformer,  sage,  and  seer.  Some  of  these 
writings  have  little  merit  in  themselves,  and  owe  such 
value  as  they  possess  mainly  to  the  fact  that  they  have 
a  place  in  the  sacred  collection,  while  others  rank  with 
the  very  noblest  literary  and  religious  productions  of  the 
world. 

Its  Composite  Character. — Perhaps  the  next  most 
striking  characteristic  of  the  literature  of  the  Bible,  after 
its  variety,  is  its  composite  structure.  This,  of  course, 
does  not  appear  on  the  surface,  but  to  the  student  it 
reveals  itself  well-nigh  everywhere.  Alike  in  history,  bi- 
ography, prophecy,  and  poetry,  he  finds  evidences  of  com- 
pilation, redaction,  revision.  Few  are  the  books  in  Old 
Testament  or  New  that  do  not  show  traces  of  more  than 
one  hand.  Says  Matthew  Arnold,  speaking  of  the  earlier 
historical  books :  *'  To  that  collection  many  an  old  book 
had  given  up  its  treasures,  and  then  itself  vanished  for- 
ever. Many  voices  were  blended  there — unknown  voices, 
speaking,  out  of  the  early  dawn."  Says  Professor  Driver, 
of  Oxford :  *'  The  authors  of  the  Hebrew  historical  books 
— except  the  shortest,  as  Ruth  and  Esther — do  not,  as  a 
modern  historian  would  do,  rewrite  the  matter  in  their 
own  language ;  they  excerpt  from  the  sources  at  their 
disposal  such  passages  as  are  suitable  to  their  purpose, 
and  incorporate  them  in  their  work,  sometimes  adding 
matter  of  their  own,  but  often  (as  it  seems)  introducing 
only  such  modifications  of  form  as  are  necessary  for  the 


4^  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE, 

purpose  of  fitting  them  together,  or  accommodating  them 
to  their  plan.  The  Hebrew  historiographer,  as  we  know 
him,  is  essentially  a  compiler  or  arranger  of  preexisting 
documents  ;  he  is  not  himself  an  original  author."  ^ 

Says  Prof.  Robertson  Smith :  "  A  modern  writer,  mak- 
ing a  history  with  the  aid  of  older  records,  masters  their 
contents  and  then  writes  a  wholly  new  book.  That  is 
not  the  way  of  Eastern  historians.  If  we  take  up  the 
great  Arabic  historians — say  Tabary,  Ibn  el  Athir,  Ibn 
Khaldun,  and  Abulfeda — we  often  find  passages  occurring 
almost  word  for  word  in  each.  All  use  directly  or  indi- 
rectly the  same  sources,  and  copy  these  sources  verbally 
as  far  as  is  consistent  with  the  scope  and  scale  of  their 
several  works.  Thus  a  comparatively  modern  book  has 
often  the  freshness  and  full  color  of  a  contemporary  nar- 
rative, and  we  can  still  separate  out  the  old  sources  from 
their  modern  setting.  So  it  is  in  the  Bible.  It  is  this 
way  of  writing  that  makes  the  Bible  history  so  vivid  and 
interesting,  in  spite  of  its  extraordinary  brevity  in  com- 
parison with  the  vast  periods  of  time  that  it  covers." " 
Again  says  Professor  Smith  :  "■  The  Semitic  genius  does 
not  lie  at  all  in  the  direction  of  organic  structure.  In 
architecture,  in  poetry,  in  history,  the  Hebrew  adds  part 
to  part,  instead  of  developing  a  single  notion.  The  tem- 
ple was  an  aggregation  of  cells,  the  longest  psalm  is  an 
acrostic,  and  so  the  longest  biblical  history  is  a  strati- 
fication." *'  In  poetical  as  well  as  in  historical  books, 
anonymous  writing  is  the  rule  ;  and  along  with  this  we 
observe  great  freedom  on  the  part  of  the  readers  and  the 
copyists,  who  not  only  made  verbal  changes  but  com- 


^  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,"  p.  3. 
2  "Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  pp.  325-326. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE.  47 

posed  new  poems  out  of  fragments  of  others.  In  a  large 
part  of  the  Book  of  Psalms  a  later  hand  has  substituted 
Elohim  for  Jehovah.  Still  more  remarkable  is  the  case 
of  the  Book  of  Job,  in  which  the  speeches  of  Elihu  quite 
break  the  connection,  and  are  almost  universally  assigned 
to  a  later  hand."  ' 

In  some  of  the  prophetical  books  the  writings  of  as 
many  as  three  different  authors  are  detected.  All  the 
Old  Testament  histories  are  compilations  ;  some  are  com- 
pilations of  compilations.  The  Pentateuch,  as  we  shall 
see  in  another  chapter,  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  different 
documents  which  wind  in  and  out  all  through  it,  like 
strands  in  a  cord. 

The  practice  of  compiling  from  earlier  documents 
appears  also  in  parts  of  the  New  Testament.  Says  Pro- 
fessor Smith  regarding  the  Gospels  :  "  All  the  earliest 
external  evidence  points  to  the  conclusion  that  the  syn- 
optic gospels  are  non-apostolic  digests  of  spoken  and 
written  apostolic  tradition,  and  that  the  arrangement 
of  the  earlier  material  in  orderly  form  took  place  only 
gradually  and  by  many  essays."  "  If  a  man  copied  a 
book,  it  was  his  to  add  to  and  modify  as  he  pleased, 
and  he  was  not  in  the  least  bound  to  distinguish  the 
old  from  the  new.  If  he  had  two  books  before  him  to 
which  he  attached  equal  worth,  he  took  large  extracts 
from  both,  and  harmonized  them  by  such  additions  or 
modifications  as  he  felt  to  be  necessary."  *'  On  such 
principles  minor  narratives  were  fused  together,  one  after 
the  other."  The  word  "  stratification  "  hints  the  process 
by  which  not  a  few  books  of  both  the  Old  Testament  and 
New  came  to  be  what  they  are.     It  has  been  said  of  the 

'  Ency.  Brit.,  art.  "  Bible." 


48  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE   BIBLE. 

Pentateuch,  with  as  much  suggest iveness  as  wit,  that  it  is 
not  Mosaic,  but  it  is  a  mosaic. 

Uncertainty  of  Dates  and  Authorship  of  Books. — 
Says  Prof.  Charles  A.  Briggs  :  "  It  may  be  regarded  as  the 
certain  result  of  the  science  of  the  Higher  Criticism,  that 
Moses  did  not  write  the  Pentateuch  or  Job  ;  Ezra  did  not 
write  the  Chronicles,  Ezra,  or  Nehemiah  ;  Jeremiah  did 
not  write  the  Kings  or  Lamentations  ;  David  did  not  write 
the  Psalter,  but  only  a  few  of  the  Psalms  ;  Solomon  did 
not  write  the  Song  of  Songs  or  Ecclesiastes,  and  only  a 
portion  of  the  Proverbs ;  Isaiah  did  not  write  half  of  the 
book  that  bears  his  name.  The  great  mass  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  written  by  authors  whose  names  and  con- 
nection with  their  writings  are  lost  in  oblivion."  * 

Says  Professor  Smith :  ''  A  large  proportion  of  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  anonymous.  All  the 
historical  books  are  anonymous  with  a  single  exception."' 

Dr.  Washington  Gladden  (and  I  quote  from  these  men 
because  they  are  recognized  as  conservative  and  "  ortho- 
dox "  scholars),  writing  of  the  Books  of  Samuel,  says: 
''  These  books  are  generally  ascribed  to  Samuel  as  their 
author.  This  is  a  fair  sample  of  that  lazy  traditionalism 
which  Christian  opinion  has  been  constrained  to  follow. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for  believing  that  the 
Books  of  Samuel  were  written  by  Samuel  any  more  than 
that  the  Odyssey  was  written  by  Ulysses,  or  the  ^neid 
by  ^neas,  or  Bruce's  Address  by  Bruce,  or  Paracelsus  by 
Paracelsus,  or  St.  Simeon  Stylites  by  Simeon  himself. 
Even  in  Bible  books  we  do  not  hold  that  the  Book  of 
Esther  was  written  by  Esther,  or  the  Book  of  Ruth  by 


'  Inaugural  Address  of  January  20,  1891.     Also  see  his  "  Biblical  Study," 
►.222  seq. 

Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  107. 


pp.  222  seq 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE.  49 

Ruth,  or  the  Book  of  Job  by  Job,  or  the  Books  of  Timo- 
thy by  Timothy.  The  fact  that  Samuel's  name  is  given 
to  the  book  proves  nothing  as  to  its  authorship.  It  may 
have  been  called  Samuel  because  it  begins  with  the  story 
of  Samuel."' 

Now,  what  is  the  cause  of  all  this  uncertainty  regard- 
ing the  authorship  and  dates  of  the  books  of  the  Bible? 
It  is  the  result  partly  of  the  general  literary  carelessness 
of  the  times,  and  partly  of  the  composite  character  of  so 
much  of  the  Bible  literature,  which  has  just  been  pointed 
out.  Of  course,  if  a  book  comes  into  existence  by  de- 
grees, it  is  hard  to  date  it.  If  it  is  compiled  from  two  or 
three  other  works,  it  is  a  question  whether  it  ought  to  be 
given  the  date  of  the  act  of  compilation  or  of  one  of  the 
original  writings.  If  a  book  has  passed  through  various 
revisions,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  exact  dates  of  some 
or  all  the  revisions  should  be  lost." 

So,  too,  if  a  book  has  two  or  three  authors,  it  is  a  ques- 
tion which  name  ought  to  be  attached  to  it ;  and  it  would 
be  easy  for  both  or  all  to  be  lost. 

Nor  does  the  difficulty  stop  here.  Ancient  Hebrew 
authorship  was  generally  anonymous ;  nay,  more  serious 
still,  it  was  very  often  pseudonymous.  Our  modern 
sense  of  literary  proprietorship  seems  to  have  been 
wholly  wanting  in  those  days.  If  a  man  wrote  a  book,  it 
was  to  have  the  book  accomplish  its  object  that  he  cared, 
and  not  to  have  his  name  attached  to  the  work.  The 
book  would  be  likely  to  go  forth  unaccompanied  by  any 

»  "Who  Wrote  the  Bible  ?  "  pp.  86-87. 

*  It  should  be  understood  that  the  dales  which  stand  in  the  margins  of  our 
common  English  Bibles  are  wholly  unreliable.     The  Revised  Version  dis- 
cards them,  as  all  scholars  have  long  done.     On  Old  Testament  chronology, 
see  Kuenen's  "Religion  of  Israel,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  159-187. 
4 


50  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE   BIBLE, 

name.  If  it  had  a  name  attached  to  it  at  all,  it  would  be 
likely  to  be  that  of  some  distinguished  person  of  a  pre- 
ceding age.  Such  a  practice  to-day  would  be  severely 
condemned;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  con- 
demned by  the  literary  ethics  of  ancient  peoples,  cer- 
tainly not  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  people.  Thus,  we  have 
writings  in  the  Bible  ascribed  to  various  persons,  as 
Moses,  David,  Solomon,  Daniel,  and  more  than  one  of 
the  apostles,  which  could  not  possibly  have  been  written 
by  these  men,  but  are  clearly  the  productions  of  later 
ages.' 

Of  course,  this  uncertainty  as  to  dates  and  authors  is 
one  of  the  very  serious  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  correct 
and  trustworthy  understanding  of  the  Bible  and  the  reli- 
gion which  it  teaches.  And  yet,  let  us  not  be  unduly 
discouraged  here.  Light  is  appearing  ;  indeed,  much  has 
already  come.     It  is  one  of  the  triumphs  of  modern  bibli- 


'  On  the  morality  of  thus  writing  under  the  names  of  others,  J.  W.  Chad- 
wick,  in  his  "Bible  of  To-day,"  justly  calls  attention  to  the  motive  of  the 
writers,  which,  beyond  question,  was  generally  unselfish  and  high.  He 
says  :  "There  is  this  at  least  to  be  said  for  those  who,  like  the  authors  of 
'  Daniel '  and  '  Deuteronomy,'  put  forth  their  own  writings  as  the  writings 
of  illustrious  men  who  had  lived  long  before  :  it  was  not  for  themselves  they 
desired  the  honor  and  authority  which  would  accrue  from  such  a  course  ; 
no,  but  only  for  the  word  they  had  to  speak,  the  cause  they  wished  to  serve. 
If  only  this  might  prosper,  they  were  willing  to  remain  forever  in  obscurity. 
And  there  they  have  remained  until  this  day.  The  authors  of  Samuel, 
Kings,  Chronicles,  are  all  unknown  to  us.  The  greatest,  too,  of  all  the 
prophets  is,  and  must  ever  be,  the  Great  Unknown  (Isaiah  xl.-lvi).  And 
with  the  PenUleuch  it  is  just  the  same.  The  Yahwehist,  the  Elohist,  the 
Deuteronomist — men  who  created,  or  at  least  collected,  a  literature  which 
has  had  a  more  commanding  influence  than  any  other  on  the  fortunes  of  the 
world,  the  fountain-head  of  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam — are  all  un- 
known to  us.  They  died  to  fame  that  Israel  might  live  for  righteousness, 
and  for  the  honor  of  her  God  "  (pp.  94-95). 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE.  $[ 

cal  scholarship  that  so  much  knowledge,  which  seemed  to 
be  lost  forever,  has  been  recovered,  as  we  shall  see  when 
we  come  to  study  the  various  books  separately  in  the 
following  chapters.  It  is  enough  to  say  here  that  the 
oldest  books  of  the  Bible  date  with  almost  absolute  cer- 
tainty from  the  eighth  century  before  Christ,  though 
fragments  go  back  much  farther — some  possibly  to  the 
time  of  Moses.  From  this  date  the  stream  of  literary 
production  continues  to  flow,  with  only  one  important 
check — that  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New 
— until  the  middle  of  the  second  century  after  Christ, 
when  the  last  book  of  the  New  Testament  was  written. 
Thus,  we  see  that  some  portions  of  this  literature  which 
forms  our  volume  of  sacred  Scriptures  made  their  appear- 
ance in  the  very  morning  of  Hebrew  civilization,  while 
other  portions  did  not  come  into  being  until  the  nation 
had  passed  through  long  and  remarkable  experiences  of 
prosperity  and  adversity,  involving  contact  with  some  of 
the  richest  civilizations  of  the  ancient  world. 

Non-Chronological  Arrangement  of  the  Books. — If 
we  are  to  understand  the  Bible,  one  thing  more  should 
be  pointed  out,  quite  as  important  as  anything  that  we 
have  yet  noticed.  It  is  the  fact  that  the  books  of  both 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  do  not  stand  in  the 
order  of  their  time  of  composition,  or  of  the  progress  of 
the  religious  history  with  which  they  have  to  do,  but  in 
an  order  that  is  wholly  arbitrary  and  seriously  misleading. 
Notice  this  first  in  the  Old  Testament.  A  few  examples 
will  make  it  plain. 

{a)  At  the  very  beginning  of  the  Bible  we  find  a  book 
called  Genesis.  Because  it  stands  first,  and  because  it 
purports  to  give  an  account  of  the  creation  and  of  the 
earliest  ages  of  the  world,  we  take  for  granted  that  it  is 


52  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE, 

the  earliest  Old  Testament  book.  But  we  are  mistaken ; 
it  is  one  of  the  latest. 

{b)  Far  on  past  the  middle  of  the  Bible,  near  the 
end  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  find  the  short  books  of 
prophecy  called  Micah,  Hosea,  and  Amos.  We  think,  of 
course,  that  these  books  were  written  late,  else  why  are 
they  given  a  place  so  far  on  toward  the  end  of  the  vol- 
ume? But  we  are  mistaken  again.  As  a  fact,  these  are 
our  very  oldest  Scripture  books ;  they  were  written  cen- 
turies before  the  book  of  Genesis. 

{c)  About  the  middle  of  the  Bible  we  find  a  book 
called  the  Psalms.  Accepting  the  common  view,  we  sup- 
pose we  have  here  a  body  of  writings,  mainly  from  the 
pen  of  David,  dating  from  about  the  year  looo  B.C.  But 
again  we  are  wrong.  In  fact,  this  is  the  Hebrew  Psalter, 
or  Hymn  Book,  a  collection,  or,  rather,  a  succession  of 
collections,  of  religious  hymns,  few  or  none  of  them  writ- 
ten by  David,  few  or  none  as  old  as  the  time  of  David, 
but  really  produced  by  writers  whose  names  are  generally 
lost,  living  in  the  various  centuries  from  David's  day 
down  to  within  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  the 
Christian  Era. 

{d)  Immediately  following  the  Psalms  we  come  upon 
three  books  called  the  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  the 
Song  of  Solomon.  Accepting  the  traditional  belief,  we 
take  it  that  these  writings  are  from  King  Solomon's  pen. 
But  here  again  biblical  scholarship  says  no ;  the  only  one 
of  the  books  that  Solomon  can  have  had  any  connection 
with  (and  that  only  slight)  is  Proverbs  ;  the  other  two 
were  composed  long  after  his  time,  and  by  authors  who 
are  unknown. 

{e)  Immediately  following  the  so-called  Song  of  Solo- 
mon is  a  long  book  called  Isaiah.     The  traditional  view  is 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE.  53 

that  it  was  written  by  a  great  prophet  of  that  name  in 
the  eighth  century  before  Christ.  We  try  to  read  the 
book  with  this  understanding  of  it  in  mind.  In  the  first 
part  of  the  book  all  goes  well,  but  as  we  advance  to  the 
latter  part  we  find  ourselves  falling  into  utter  confusion 
as  to  dates  and  sequences  of  events.  What  is  the 
trouble  ?  Simply  that  the  book  is  not  one,  but  two 
or  more  written  at  diflferent  dates.  Scholars  have  found 
out  that  the  Isaiah  of  the  eighth  century  wrote  only  the 
first  thirty-nine  chapters  of  the  book;  the  remaining 
twenty-seven  chapters  were  written  by  a  prophet  or 
prophets  who  lived  during  the  Babylonian  exile.  Indeed, 
portions  may  have  a  later  date  still. 

(y)  A  little  farther  on  than  Isaiah  we  find  a  propheti- 
cal book  called  Daniel.  Our  common  version  gives  its 
date  as  between  607  and  534  B.C.  But  scholars  find  its 
real  date  to  be,  almost  beyond  question,  about  165  B.C. 

{g)  I  will  take  only  one  more  example,  but  that  shall 
be  the  most  important  of  all.  The  first  five  books  of  the 
Bible  are  called  the  Five  Books  of  Moses,  or  the  Penta- 
teuch. They  contain,  among  other  things,  an  elaborate 
code  of  laws  for  the  organization  of  the  Jewish  nation 
and  the  conduct  of  its  worship.  Unless  we  have  looked 
below  the  surface,  we  take  for  granted  that  Moses  actu- 
ally wrote  this  code,  and  that  the  Jewish  government 
and  worship  were  actually  organized  and  set  in  operation 
on  the  plan  here  indicated.  With  this  thought  in  mind 
we  read  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament  and  try  to  under- 
stand it.  But  we  are  baffled  everywhere.  As  we  proceed 
in  our  reading  we  find  everything  confused — there  is  no 
order ;  there  is  no  natural  sequence  of  events ;  there  is 
no  growth  or  progress.  As  soon  as  we  get  through  these 
so-called  Five  Books  of  Moses,  in  which  this  ecclesiastical 


54  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

and  civil  government  is  described  and  represented  as  set 
up,  we  come  to  the  historical  books  of  Joshua,  Judges, 
and  Samuel.  These  purport  to  give  us  the  history  of  the 
people  for  three  hundred  years  after  this  Mosaic  govern- 
ment begins.  But,  to  our  astonishment,  there  is  no  trace 
of  any  such  government.  Throughout  the  long  period  of 
the  Judges  there  is  little  else  but  political  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal chaos.  There  is  no  trace  of  a  sacred  constitution  bind- 
ing upon  all.  The  "  Law  of  the  Lord  "  is  not  a  written 
document,  but  a  living  word  in  the  breasts  and  on  the 
lips  of  men.  The  priests,  instead  of  having  all  power, 
have  very  little.  Power  is  wielded  by  the  heads  of  fami- 
lies and  tribes,  who  control  the  public  worship  and 
appoint  priests  or  depose  them  at  their  pleasure.  The 
idea  of  such  a  hierocracy  as  that  described  in  Exodus  and 
Leviticus  seems  to  have  entered  the  mind  of  nobody. 
As  we  read  on,  some  traces  of  civil  order  begin  gradually 
to  appear ;  the  scattered  tribes  draw  together,  largely 
for  protection  against  common  enemies  ;  civil  law  more 
and  more  takes  the  place  of  the  rule  of  the  strongest. 
By  and  by  the  people  get  unified  enough  to  want  a  king ; 
then  a  hereditary  monarchy  is  established,  which  contin- 
ues on,  first  in  one  line  and  then  in  two,  for  centuries. 
But  all  this  time  there  is  no  sign  of  that  ecclesiastical 
government  which  Moses  is  represented  as  having  set  up 
— no  indication  that  anybody  knows  of  the  Levitical  leg- 
islation. Thus  the  idea  that  such  a  government  has  been 
established  continually  confuses  us. 

When  we  get  down  to  the  time  of  the  earlier  prophets 
it  is  no  better.  We  have  the  writings  of  a  number  of 
these.  But  they  make  no  references  to  the  Levitical 
code ;  on  the  contrary,  they  write  constantly  as  if  there 
were  no  such  thing  in  existence. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE.  55 

We  come  on  down  to  the  period  of  Jewish  history 
which  lies  on  this  side  the  exile  to  Babylon,  and  all  of  a 
sudden  the  Levitical  system  appears.  From  this  time 
forward  it  is  the  centre  of  everything.  From  this  time 
the  written  law  of  Moses  is  the  authority  to  which  all 
appeal  is  made  ;  everything  begins  to  revolve  about  the 
priests  and  Levites  ;  the  Jews,  to  borrow  the  language  of 
the  Koran,  are  henceforward  "the  people  of  the  Book"; 
and  "■  the  cultus,  with  its  burnt-offerings  and  sin-offer- 
ings, its  purifications  and  abstinences,  its  feasts  and 
Sabbaths,  strictly  observed  as  prescribed  by  the  law,  is 
now  the  principal  business  of  life." 

Now,  how  is  all  this  to  be  explained?  It  can  be  ex- 
plained only  in  one  way.  The  Levitical  Law  cannot  have 
been  given  to  the  Jewish  people  by  Moses;  the  real  time 
of  its  origin  is  this  later  age,  near  the  time  of  the  Baby- 
lonish exile. 

This  discovery,  the  most  important  made  by  biblical 
scholarship  this  century,  is  found  to  be  the  key  that 
unlocks  the  Old  Testament.  Of  course,  an  idea  so  revo- 
lutionary was  at  first  fought  on  all  hands  and  in  the 
severest  manner.  But,  slowly,  leading  scholars  of  Ger- 
many, Holland,  and  France,  and  then  of  England  and 
America,  have  found  themselves  compelled  to  accept  it, 
until  now  hardly  one  of  first  rank  dissents.  The  litera- 
ture of  Old  Testament  introduction  and  exegesis  is  be- 
ing fast  rewritten  in  the  light  of  this  luminous  thought, 
which  is  found  to  be  scarcely  less  important  in  bringing 
order  into  Old  Testament  studies  than  was  Darwin's 
thought  of  progress  by  survival  of  the  fittest,  or  Newton's 
of  gravitation,  in  bringing  order  into  studies  of  physical 
nature.  The  confusion  which  reigned  throughout  all  Old 
Testament   history,  and   made  every  book  from  Genesis 


56  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

to  Malachi  a  puzzle,  so  long  as  the  traditional  view  was 
maintained  that  the  Levitical  Law  was  written  at  the  Ex- 
odus and  imposed  upon  the  Jewish  people  at  the  begin- 
ning of  their  history,  now  passes  away.  We  now  see 
order ;  we  now  see  sequence  :  we  now  see  growth  and 
progress ;  we  now  see  that  the  elaborate  ecclesiastical 
system  of  later  Judaism  came  into  existence  when  the 
people  were  ready  for  it,  and  through  causes  which  can 
be  clearly  traced.  The  Jewish  religion  now  takes  its 
place  among  the  other  religions  of  the  world  as  an  evo- 
lution ;  the  Old  Testament  we  can  now  understand.' 

Passing  on  to  the  New  Testament,  we  find  that  the 
books  here  also,  as  well  as  in  the  older  collection,  are 
placed  in  a  wrong  chronological  order.  Let  me  cite  two 
or  three  illustrations. 

{a)  In  the  present  order  of  arrangement  the  Gospels 
stand  first.  Chronologically,  they  belong  well  over  in  the 
volume. 

'  Professor  Pfleiderer  thus  contrasts  the  old  traditional  view  of  Israelitish 
history,  which  accepts  the  Levitical  code  as  from  Moses,  and  sets  it  up  as 
an  authority  over  the  Hebrew  people  at  the  beginning  of  their  career  in 
Palestine,  with  the  new  view  which  makes  that  code  a  late  development : 
"There"  [according  to  the  old  view],  he  says,  "we  had  from  beginning 
to  end  [of  Hebrew  history]  a  series  of  riddles,  of  psychological  and  histori- 
cal puzzles  ;  here  [in  the  light  of  the  new  view]  everything  is  comprehen- 
sible ;  we  have  a  clear  development,  analogous  to  the  rest  of  history  ;  the 
external  history  of  the  nation  and  the  internal  history  of  its  religious  con- 
sciousness in  constant  accord  and  fruitful  intercourse  ;  and  though  not  an 
unbroken  advance  in  a  straight  line  of  the  whole  people,  still  a  laborious 
struggle  of  the  representatives  of  the  higher  truth  with  the  stolid  masses,  a 
struggle  in  which  success  and  defeat  succeed  each  other  in  dramatic  alter- 
nation, and  even  failure  only  serves  to  aid  the  evolution  of  the  idea  itself  in 
ever  greater  purity  from  its  original  integuments.  This  is  human  history, 
full  of  marvels  and  of  divine  revelation,  but  nowhere  interrupted  by  miracle 
or  by  sudden,  unaccountable  transitions  "("  Development  of  Theology," 
p.  274.) 


THE  BIBLE  AS  LITERATURE.  57 

{b)  Paul's  Epistles  now  have  places  in  the  second  half. 
But  they  were  written  before  any  other  New  Testament 
books,  and  therefore,  in  a  true  chronological  order,  they 
would  stand  at  the  beginning. 

{c)  The  Gospel  which  bears  the  name  of  John,  at  pres- 
ent follows  immediately  after  those  of  Matthew,  Mark, 
and  Luke.  It  probably  ought  to  stand  nearly  at  the  end 
of  the  New  Testament. 

{d)  At  the  end,  now,  we  find  that  strange  book  whose 
place  in  the  Bible  has  always  been  regarded  as  so  ques- 
tionable ;  namely,  the  Revelation,  or  the  Apocalypse.  But 
if  this  book  is  to  be  included  at  all,  it  should  certainly 
be  removed  from  the  place  which  it  now  occupies,  for  in 
the  judgment  of  no  school  of  biblical  scholars  is  it  the 
latest  of  the  New  Testament  writings. 

This  lack  alike  of  chronological  and  logical  order  (for  it 
is  both)  which  extends  to  nearly  or  quite  all  the  New 
Testament  books,  is  seriously  confusing.  Indeed,  there 
is  no  such  thing  possible  as  understanding  the  New  Tes- 
tament until  we  recognize  it ;  as  there  was  no  possibility 
of  understanding  the  Old  Testament  until  the  similar  lack 
of  order  there  was  understood.  But,  fortunately,  here, 
as  there,  scholarship  has  been  at  work  with  a  persever- 
ance and  an  insight  which  laugh  at  all  obstacles.  As  a 
result,  it  has  not  only  torn  down  the  false  old,  but  has 
gone  far  to  build  up  a  better  new.  We  are  given  at  last, 
not  indeed  in  all  cases  with  perfect  certainty  yet,  but 
with  strong  and  growing  probability,  the  true  order  of 
the  production  of  most  of  the  New  Testament  writings. 

The  importance  of  this  knowledge  can  hardly  be  esti- 
mated. It  is  a  key  everywhere  applicable  in  the  study 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  found  able  to  unlock  count- 
less difficulties.     With  it  in  our  hand,  here,  too,  as  well 


58  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

as  in  the  Old  Testament,  order  and  sequence  begin  at 
last  to  appear.  We  find  ourselves  once  more  in  a  world 
where  laws  of  cause  and  effect  are  operative.  Now  we 
are  able  to  discover  an  orderly  unfolding  of  events  and 
a  logical  growth  of  thought  throughout  these  times  and 
these  writings,  which  before  were  such  a  labyrinth  of 
confusion.  Now  the  origin  of  the  New  Testament  and 
of  Christianity  begins  for  the  first  time  to  become  intelli- 
gible. 


DATES   OF   BIBLICAL   LITERATURE, 


SHOWING  THE  LITERARY  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


Many  of  these  dates  are  only  approximate. 

The  Song  of  the  Well.    Numbers  xxi:   17,18.    Fragment  B.C. 

of  an  old  popular  song;  probable  date 1300-1100 

The  Song  of  Deborah.    Judges  v.    An  ancient  war  ballad 

of  striking  poetical  qualities.     Date  probably     .    .    .       1 200-1 100 

The  Fable  of  Jotham.     Judges  ix:  7  sq 1 200-1 100 

The  Blessing  of  Jacob.     Genesis  xlix 1100-950 

David's   Lament   over    Jonathan?     2    Samuel    i:    17  sq. 
Almost  certainly  from  David,  and  showing  that  the 

writer  was  possessed  of  high  poetical  gifts 1000 

The  Parable  of  Nathan.     2  Samuel  xii :  1-4 1000 

The    Prophesies     (or  speeches)  of  Balaam.       Numbers 

xxiii,  xxiv 1000-950 

The  Blessing  of  Moses.  Deuteronomy  xxxiii 800-750 

(There  are  many  more  fragments  of  one  kind  or  another 

from  earlier  ages  imbedded  in  the  narrative  books  of 

the  Old  Testament.    The  above  are  perhaps  the  most 

important.) 

The  Prophetic  Narrative  or  "  Document  "  of  the  Hexa- 

teuch  known  to  scholars  as  "  J,"  compiled  about      .  850-800 

The  Prophetic  Narrative  or  "Document"  "E,"  compiled 

about      800-750 

(The  first  six  books  of  the  Old  Testament  —  the  so-called 
"Five  Books  of  Moses,"  or  Pentateuch,  and  Joshua  — 
are  made  up  of  what  are  known  as  Documents  "J," 
"E,"  "D,"  and  "P"  (not  to  mention  others  less  im- 
portant), compiled  at  different  dates  and  finally 
blended  to  form  the  Hexateuch  as  we  now  have  it.) 
Amos,  the  earliest  prophetical  book,  indeed  the   earliest 

written  book  of  the  Bible 750 

Hosea 746-722 

Isaiah  (the  main  parts  of  chapters  i-xxxix) 740-700 

Micah luJ.   ti^  .    .    .    .  735-702 

Documents  "J"  and  "E"  combined 650-625 

Deuteronomy  (Document  "D")  written  .   .    7  .    ,    .    .   ,  650-621 

Nahum,  about 630 

Zephaniah 630 


Discovery  of  the  "  Book  of  the  Law  "  (Deuteronomy,  Docu-  B.  C. 

ment  "D")  in  the  Temple 621 

Jeremiah 626-580 

Proverbs,  earhest  collection  (x:  i-xxii:  16)  perhaps  .    .    .  621-600 
Psalms.    Many  individual  psalms  doubtless  written  before 

the  Exile.     (Probably  no  collection  made  until  the 

time  of  Ezra,  in  the  fifth  century). 

Habakkuk 605 

Ezekiel 593-57° 

Obadiah,  about 580 

Lamentations 580 

Priestly  Document,  "P,"  main  parts  compiled     ....  560-500 
The  "Second  Isaiah"  (Isaiah  xl-lv  and  perhaps  Ivi-lxvi) 

about  .    .    .    .    : 540 

Zechariah  (some  parts  late)  earliest  part,  chapters  i-viii.  520 

Haggai 52b 

Judges 560-500 

I  and  2  Samuel  (formerly  one  book)* 560-500 

I  and  2  Kings  (formerly  one  book)      560-500 

Joshua    450-400 

Job,  possibly  written  during  the  Exile;  more  likely      .    .  450-400 
Priestly  Document,  "P,"  published  to  the  people  by  Ezra 

as  the  "Law  of  the  Lord,"  the  "Law  of  Moses,"  the 

"Book  of  the  Law" 444? 

Ruth 430 

Malachi      420 

Jonah,  written  as  a  protest  against  the  narrow  spirit  of 

Ezra,  probably  about 420 

Joel 400 

Completion  of  the  Pentateuch  by  a  union  of  "J,"  "E," 

"D,"  and  "P" 400 

Genesis,  in  its  present  form        400 

Exodus,  in  its  present  form 400 

Leviticus,  in  its  present  form 400 

Numbers,  in  its  present  form 400 

Canon  of  "The  Law"  completed 400-300 

Song  of  Solomon 300-200 

Ezra  in  its  present  form  (based  on  earlier  "Memoirs  of 

Ezra")  about 300 

Nehemiah  in  its  present  form   (based  on  earlier  "Me- 
moirs of  Nehemiah")  about 300 

I  and  2  Chronicles  (originally  one  book) 300 

Canon  of  "The  Prophets"  completed      300-200 

Ecclesiastes 250-175 

Translation  of  the  Old  Testament  into  Greek  by  Jewish 

Scholars  in  Alexandria  (the  Septuagint) 250-100 

tlsther 200 


Tobit  (O.  T.  Apocrypha)    . 

Proverbs,  final  collection , 

Ecclesiasticus,  or  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach 

(O.  T.  Apocrypha)  .    .  .-,-, -awu*.: 

Daniel ?   r   -^ 

Enoch  (O.  T,  Pseudepigrapha) 

Psalms,  date  of  final  collection,  about 

Wisdom  of  Solomon  (O.  T.  Apocrypha)     ....... 

Judith  (O.  T.  Apocrypha) .    , 

I  Maccabees  (O.  T.  Apocrypha),  about      

1  Thessalonians »    ,    .   . 

2  Thessalonians,  if  from  Paul 

(If  not  Paul's  about  70) 

Galatians 

I  and  2  Corinthians 

Romans      

Philemon 

Philippians 

Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  (an  early  Gospel  of 

which  only  fragments  are  preserved.     See  p.   122). 

According  to  Harnack  about 

Gospel  of  Mark 

Hebrews 

Gospel  of  Matthew      

I  Peter 

James 

(If  by  James  the  brother  of  Jesus,  not  later  than  50) 

Gospel  of  Luke 

Acts 

Old  Testament  Canon,  virtual  final  setdement  of,  by  the 

Jews  at  the  Synod  at  Jamnia 

First  Epistle  of  Clement  (regarded  as  true  scripture  by 

many  early  churches)   date  (Harnack) 

Colossians,  if  not  Paul's,  as  late  as 

Ephesians,  if  not  Paul's,  as  late  as 

(If  Paul's  63) 

I  and  2  Timothy      

(There  may  be  passages  from  Paul  of  much  earlier  date 

in  2  Timothy). 

Titus ' 

I,  2,  and  3  John,  not  earlier  than . 

(Possiblv  as  late  as  130-140.     If  by  John  the  Apostle, 

95-98)    .    -    -    ^    

Gospel  of  John     ,..,..... 


B.  C. 

200 
200-150 

190-170 

168-165 

168-105 

150 

150-50 

135-125 

100 

A.  D. 

53"54 
54 

56 

57-58 

58 

62-63 

62-63 


05 
70-75 
75-78 
75-90 
81-96 

85-95 


8v 
8v 


100 
100 


90-100 

93-95 
100 
106 


loo-iio 

lOO-IIO 


(Possibly  much  later;  many  high  authorities  think  as  A.  D. 

late  as  140-150) 

Jude 100-130 

Preaching  of  Peter  (N.  T.  Apocrypha) 100-130 

The  Seven  Ignatian  Epistles  (much  read  in  the  early 

churches)  a  little  earlier  than 117 

The  Epistle  of  Polycarp  (much  read  in  the  early  churches)  110-117 

Apocalypse  of  Peter  (N.  T.  Apocrypha) 120-140 

The  Epistle  of  Barnabas  (regarded  as  true  scripture  by 

many  early  churches) 130 

The  Didache  (much  read  in  the  early  churches)  •.•  i.  -l-*).  -         131-160 

Revelation,  nucleus  66-70;  final  form 136 

Shepherd  of  Hermas  (regarded  as  true  scripture  by  many 

early  churches) 1 15-140 

2  Peter 150 

Bible  Canon.  A  Council  of  African  Bishops  (not  a  Uni- 
versal Council),  held  at  Hippo,  agreed  upon  a  Canon 
which  included  all  the  books  of  our  present  Protestant 
Bible,  plus  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  Ecclesiasticus, 
Tobit,  Judith,  and  two  books  of  Maccabees  ....  393 
A  Council  held  at  Carthage  reaffirmed  the  list  of  its  prede- 
cessor        397 

The   Vatican   Manuscript    (Greek)    containing   the   Old 
Testament    nearly  complete  and    most  of   the   New 

Testament;  date  early  in  the 4th  century 

The   Sinaitic  Manuscript    (Greek)    containing  the  New 
Testament  and  twenty  books  of  the  Old  Testament; 

date  the  4th  century  probably  about 331 

The  Alexandrian  Manuscript  (Greek)  containing  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  nearly  complete,  plus  many 

Apocryphal  books;  date  middle  of  the 5th  century 

Earliest  Hebrew  Manuscript  of  any  part  of  the  Old  Test- 

tament  (the  Prophet  Codex) 916 

Earliest  Hebrew  Manuscript  of  the  entire  Old  Testament  1009 

Vulgate  (Authorized  Bible  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church) ; 

translation  into  Latin,  largely  by  Jerome 383-404 

Division  of  the  Bible  into  our  present  chapters,  shortly 

before 1228 

WyclifTe's  Translation  of  the  Bible  into  English    ....  1382 

First  Printed  Bible  (the  Latin  Vulgate) 1455 

First  Printed  Hebrew  Bible .  1488 

Canon  of  the  Bible  established  for  the  Roman  Catholic 

Church  by  the  Council  of  Trent .       1545-1546 

Division  of  the  Bible  into  its  present  verses 1555 

Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible  in  English  (King  James')  161 1 

The  Revised  Version 1885 

The  American  Standard  Revised  Version 1901 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE   PENTATEUCH  :    WAS   IT   WRITTEN   BY    MOSES  ? 

If  we  turn  to  the  beginning  of  our  Bible  we  shall  find 
the  Book  of  Genesis,  with  which  the  volume  opens,  called 
"The  First  Book  of  Moses."  Turn  to  the  next  four 
books,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and  Deuteronomy, 
and  we  shall  find  these  called  respectively  the  "  Sec- 
ond," the  "Third,"  the  "Fourth,"  and  the  "  Fifth  Book 
of  Moses."  If  we  could  go  back  to  the  time  of  Christ, 
we  should  find  the  Jews  speaking  of  these  five  books 
as  one,  and  calling  them  the  Law,  or  the  Torah.  Two 
centuries  or  so  before  Christ,  when  a  translation  of  them 
had  been  made  into  Greek,  another  name  came  to  be 
attached  to  them  ;  namely,  the  Pentateuch.  This  name, 
which  means  the  five-fold  book,  is  often  given  to  them 
to-day.  But  whatever  may  be  the  title  by  which  we  des- 
ignate them,  they  are  in  popular  thought,  as  well  as  in 
our  common  version  of  the  Bible,  firmly  associated  with 
the  name  of  Moses. 

And  as  they  are  thought  to  come  from  the  pen  of  the 
great  Hebrew  lawgiver,  and  deal  with  events  going  back 
to  the  most  ancient  times — indeed,  to  the  very  creation 
of  the  world — of  course  it  is  natural  that  they  should  be 
regarded  as  the  oldest  of  our  Scripture  books,  and  be 
given  a  place  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Bible.  But 
in  a  preceding  chapter  it  has  been  intimated  that  all 
this  is  a  mistake.  I  have  spoken  of  these  books  as  not 
the  productions  of  Moses  at  all,  and  as  dating  from  an 


6o  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

age  in  Hebrew  history  many  centuries  after  Moses* 
death.  This  claim  is  so  contrary  to  the  common  thought, 
so  startling  in  its  boldness,  and  so  revolutionary  in  its 
effects,  that  the  ground  on  which  it  rests  must  be  at  least 
briefly  stated.  As  already  intimated,  this  view  has 
come  into  general  acceptance  among  the  best  biblical 
scholars  of  the  world  ;  not,  however,  because  anybody 
beforehand  planned  that  it  should  be  so,  but  because  the 
patient,  reverent  study  of  a  century  has  brought  to  light, 
slowly  but  steadily,  such  an  overwhelming  array  of  facts, 
all  looking  in  this  direction,  that  at  last  the  conclusions 
which  they  suggest  have  become  irresistible.  To  show 
that  I  do  not  speak  too  strongly,  let  me  quote  a  sen- 
tence from  Prof.  George  T.  Ladd,  a  ripe  scholar  and  a 
careful  and  conservative  writer,  whom  few  will  suspect 
of  extravagance  of  language.  In  his  last  work  on  the 
Bible,  Professor  Ladd  says;  *'With  very  few  exceptions 
anywhere,  and  with  almost  no  exceptions  in  those  places 
where  the  Old  Testament  is  studied  with  most  freedom 
and  breadth  of  learning,  the  whole  world  of  scholars  has 
abandoned  the  ancient  tradition  that  the  Pentateuch,  in 
such  form  as  we  now  have  it,  was  the  work  of  Moses."  * 
Of  course  there  is  a  non-progressive,  backward-looking  "  or- 
thodoxy "  that  cries  out  in  indignation  and  alarm  against 
any  disturbance  of  the  old  view,  and  stoutly  refuses  to 
move  forward.  But  this  is  to  be  expected.  It  has  been 
the  same  in  every  advance  made  in  the  past ;  it  will  prob- 
ably always  be  so  in  the  future.  This  need  not  trouble  us. 
A  few  of  the  more  important  facts  upon  which  the  new 
view  rests,  very  briefly  stated,  are  the  following : '" 

'  "  What  is  the  Bible  ?"  pp.  299-300. 

'  Pentateuchal  or  Hexateuchal  criticism  (by  many  scholars  the  Pentateuch 
and  Joshua  are  classed  together  as  one,  under  the  name  of  the  Hexateuch) 


THE  PENTATEUCH :   WAS  IT  WRITTEN  BY  MOSESf    6l 

(i.)  An  Unfounded  Tradition. — The  idea  that  Moses 
was  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch  is  simply  a  tradition, 
and  a  late  one  at  that,  having  no  historic  basis.  Prof. 
Robertson  Smith  says  it  is  "  derived  from  the  old  Jewish 
theory  in  Josephus  that  every  leader  of  Israel  wrote 
down  by  divine  authority  the  events  of  his  own  time, 
so  that  the  sacred  history  is  like  a  day-book  constantly 
written  up  to  date.  No  part  of  the  Bible  corresponds  to 
this  description,  and  the  Pentateuch  as  little  as  any." ' 

has  developed  an  extensive  literature,  and  has  become  almost  a  science  by 
itself.  The  limits  of  this  book  permit  only  a  brief  glance  at  its  most  impor- 
tant points  and  its  main  conclusions.  For  those  who  wish  to  pursue  the 
subject  further  a  few  valuable  and  easily  accessible  works  may  be  men- 
tioned. Among  the  most  full  and  able  of  anything  in  English  are  Kuenen's 
"  Hexateuch,"  translated  from  the  Dutch,  and  Wellhausen's  "  History  of 
Israel,"  from  the  German.  Next  to  these,  but  covering  wider  ground,  is 
Kuenen's  "  Religion  of  Israel."  The  article  "  Pentateuch  "  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica  (by  Wellhausen)  is  unsurpassed  among  brief  treatises. 
Professor  S.  R.  Driver's  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment "  devotes  one  hundred  and  fifty  pages  to  the  Hexateuch,  and  is  judicial 
and  able.  R.  Heber  Newton's  "  Book  of  Beginnings  "  is  an  intelligent  and 
interesting  popular  treatment  of  the  subject.  Pfleiderer's  "  Development 
of  Theology  "  ( 1890),  Lichtenberger's  "  History  of  German  Theology  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century"  (1889),  and  C.  H.  H.  Wright's  "Introduction  to  the 
Old  Testament  "  (1890),  all  trace  the  history  of  Pentateuchal  criticism.  Ben- 
jamin W.  Bacon's  "  Genesis  of  Genesis  "  contains  excellent  chapters  on  docu- 
mentary analysis,  and  prints  in  different  kinds  of  type  the  three  main 
documents  that  run  through  Genesis,  so  as  to  enable  the  student  to  compare 
them.  "The  Polychrome  Bible  "  adopts  a  somewhat  similar  plan  but  carries 
it  still  further,  and  represents  the  documents  by  different  colors.  Two  valu- 
able critical  works  covering  the  whole  ground  of  Hexateuchal  criticism  are 
"  The  Documents  of  the  Hexateuch,  Translated  and  Arranged  in  Chronologi- 
cal Order,  with  Introductions  and  Notes,"  by  W.  E.  Addis,  and  "  The  Hex- 
ateuch according  to  the  Revised  Version,  arranged  in  its  Constituent 
Documents,  with  Introductions  and  Notes,"  by  J.  Estlin  Carpenter  and  G. 
Harford-Battersby  (1900). 

1  "  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  321.  Of  the  declaration 
in  the  Talmud  \^Baba  bathra  14),  that  "  Moses  wrote  his  own  book,  and 
the  section  concerning  Balaam,  and  Job,"  Professor  Driver  says :  "  The 


62  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

(2.)  No  Claim  made  by  the  Books  Themselves  to  a 
Mosaic  Authorship. — The  fact  that  the  name  of  Moses 
appears  in  the  titles  to  the  books  in  our  English  Bibles 
is  not  such  a  claim ;  for,  as  is  well  known  by  scholars, 
these  titles  are  no  part  of  the  original  text.  Nowhere  are 
we  told  that  the  whole  Pentateuch,  or  that  any  one  of  its 
books,  came  from  the  pen  of  the  great  founder  of  the 
Hebrew  nation.  Certain  parts  and  passages  here  and 
there — that  is  to  say,  certain  fragments  incorporated  into 
the  books  when  they  were  finally  compiled — are  ascribed 
to  him.  But  these  are  all.  No  whole  book  is  ascribed 
to  him  ;  much  less  all  the  books.'  To  be  sure,  in  various 
parts  of  the  Bible  there  are  references  to  the  Law  of 
Moses,  and  the  Book  of  the  Law.     But  it  is  the  opinion 


entire  passage  is  manifestly  destitute  of  historical  value.  Not  only  is  it  late 
in  date  ;  it  is  discredited  by  the  character  of  its  contents  themselves " 
("  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  New  Testament,"  p.  xxix.).  For 
an  examination  of  the  tradition  of  Mosaic  authorship,  see  Bacon's  "  Gene- 
sis of  Genesis,"  pp.  33-36. 

^  Dr.  Heber  Newton,  in  his  "  Book  of  the  Beginnings,"  makes  a  careful 
study  of  this  question,  and  sums  it  all  up  in  the  following  words  :  "  We 
find  that  a  brief  record  of  a  battle  in  Exodus  (xvii.  8-13).  a  memorandum 
of  camping  stations  in  Numbers  (xxxiii.  3-49),  together  with  the  Ten 
Words  (Ex.  xxxiv.  28),  and  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
constitute  all  the  narrative  and  legislation  that  is  claimed  to  have  been 
written  by  Moses.  The  Pentateuch  as  a  whole  appears  anonymous.  This 
fact  of  itself  ought  to  settle  the  case.  For,  if  these  books  were  really 
written  by  Moses,  is  it  conceivable  that  he  would  have  left  them  uncerti- 
fied?" (pp.  34-35).  Says  Prof.  Robertson  Smith  :  "The  history  does  not 
profess  to  be  written  by  Moses,  but  only  notes  from  time  to  time  that  he 
wrote  down  certain  special  things  (Ex.  xvii.  14,  xxiv.  4,  xxxiv.  27  ;  Num. 
xxxiii.  2  ;  Deut.  xxxi.  9,  22,  24)"  ("Old  Testament  in  Jewish  Church," 
p.  320).  Says  Professor  Driver  :  "  There  is  no  passage  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment which  ascribes  the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch  to  Moses,  or  even 
to  Moses'  age"  ("  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament" 
p.  117). 


THE  PENTATEUCH:   WAS  IT  WRITTEN  BY  MOSES?    63 

of  our  most  learned  and  careful  scholars  that  all  we  are 
justified  in  concluding  from  these  is  that  a  nucleus  of 
that  legislation  found  in  the  Pentateuch  came  originally 
from  Moses,  though  how  extended  or  how  definite  a 
nucleus  nobody  can  with  certainty  tell.  Moses  was  the 
starting  point  of  Israel's  organic  history.  The  original 
law-giving  which  formed  the  beginning  of  Israel's  distinct 
religious  and  national  life  came  undoubtedly  from  him. 
What  was  so  natural,  therefore,  as  that  all  subsequent 
legislation  should  seek  to  avail  itself  of  his  authority, 
and  to  take  his  name,  just  as  all  psalms  came  to  be 
ascribed  to  David,  and  all  proverbs  to  Solomon  ? '     But 

'  In  explanation  of  the  custom  of  the  Hebrews  of  ascribing  all  their  laws 
to  Moses,  which  seems  to  us  so  strange,  Prof.  Robertson  Smith  says  :  "  It 
is  a  familiar  fact  that  in  the  early  law  of  all  nations  necessary  modifications 
on  old  law  are  habitually  carried  out  by  means  of  what  lawyers  call  legal 
fictions.  This  name  is  somewhat  misleading  ;  for  a  legal  fiction  is  no 
deceit,  but  a  convention  which  all  parties  understand.  But  it  is  found 
more  convenient  to  present  the  new  law  in  a  form  which  enables  it  to  be 
treated  as  an  integral  part  of  the  old  legislation.  Thus  in  Roman  jurispru- 
dence all  law  was  supposed  to  be  derived  from  the  Laws  of  the  Twelve 
Tables  (Maine,  'Ancient  Law,'  p.  33  seq.),  just  as  in  Israel  all  law  was  held 
to  be  derived  from  the  teaching  of  Moses.  In  neither  case  was  any  false- 
hood meant  or  conveyed.  The  whole  object  of  this  way  of  treating  the  law 
was  to  maintain  the  continuity  of  the  legal  system.  ...  In  our  state 
of  society  legal  fictions  are  out  of  date  ;  in  English  law  they  have  long  been 
mere  antiquarian  lumber.  But  Israel's  law  was  given  for  the  practical  use  of 
an  ancient  people,  and  required  to  take  the  forms  which  we  know  as  a  matter 
of  fact  to  be  those  which  primitive  nations  best  understand.  ...  In 
India,  when  the  government  brings  a  new  water  supply  into  a  village,  the 
village  authorities  make  rules  for  its  use  and  distribution  ;  but  *  these  rules 
do  not  purport  to  emanate  from  the  personal  authority  of  their  author  or 
authors  ;  there  is  always  a  sort  of  fiction  under  which  some  customs  as  to 
the  distribution  of  water  are  supposed  to  have  existed  from  all  antiquity, 
although,  in  fact,  no  artificial  supply  had  been  so  much  as  thought  of.'  In 
the  same  way  the  new  laws  of  the  Levitical  code  are  presented  as  ordi- 
nances of  Moses,  though,  when  they  were  first  promulgated,  every  one  knew 


64  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

we  are  not  left  with  merely  negative  evidence  in  the  mat- 
ter. 

Passages  vrhich  Betray  a  Later  Hand. — Scattered  all 
through  the  Pentateuch  are  passages  which  betray  other 
and  later  authors  than  Moses.  If  we  turn  to  Deuter- 
onomy xxxiv.  5-6,  we  find  an  account  given  of  Moses' 
death  and  burial.  That  can  hardly  have  been  written 
by  Moses ;  men  do  not  write  histories  of  their  own  death 
and  funeral  obsequies.  It  has  been  claimed  that  Moses 
was  miraculously  inspired  to  write  it  beforehand.  But 
this  claim  is  cut  off  by  the  sentence  with  which  the  ac- 
count ends,  which  is  :  "  No  man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre 
unto  this  day."  Unto  what  day  ?  Would  Moses  writ- 
ing beforehand  of  his  burial  say  that  "  no  man  knoweth 
of  the  sepulchre  unto  this  day  "  ?  Nothing  can  be  plainer 
than  that  the  writer  is  some  one  living  long  after  Moses, 
and  that  by  "  this  day  "  he  means  his  own  later  time. 
There  are  other  passages  in  the  Pentateuch  where  the 
same  expression,  "  unto  this  day,"  is  used,  showing  that 
they,  too,  were  written  late. 

There  are  historical  omissions  in  the  account  of  the 
journey  through  the  wilderness  which  it  is  incredible 
that  the  leader  of  that  movement  should  have  made. 
For  example,  in  one  place  we  have  thirty-eight  years  of 
time  dropped  out  as  if  it  were  nothing.  Turning  to 
Numbers  (xx.  i)  we  read:  ''Then  came  the  children  of 
Israel,  even  the  whole  congregation,  into  the  desert  of 
Zin  in  the  first  month  :  and  the  people  abode  in  Kadesh." 

that  they  were  not  so,  though  Ezra  himself  speaks  of  some  of  them  as  ordi- 
nances of  the  prophets  "  ("  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  pp.  385- 
387).  Says  Professor  Toy  :  "  In  those  days  it  was  the  custom  to  refer  wis- 
dom and  authority  to  ancient  sages"  ("  History  of  the  Religion  of  Israel," 
p.  67). 


THE  PENTATEUCH:   WAS  IT  WRITTEN  BY  MOSES?    65 

A  few  verses  farther  on,  in  the  same  chapter  (after  two 
or  three  incidents  that  occurred  at  Kadesh  have  been 
mentioned),  we  have  this  record  (xx.  22)  :  ''  And  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  even  the  whole  congregation,  journeyed 
from  Kadesh,  and  came  unto  Mount  Hor."  Nothing  could 
be  more  simple  or  straightforward ;  seemingly  nothing 
could  be  more  closely  connected.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  are  now  thirty-eight  years  farther  on.  We  have 
made  a  leap  from  the  first  month  of  the  third  year  after 
the  Exodus  to  the  fifth  month  of  the  fortieth  year.  Thus 
more  than  a  third  of  a  century  is  not  only  left  an  utter 
blank,  but  is  dropped  out  between  two  verses  of  the  same 
chapter,  with  not  so  much  as  a  mention  of  the  omission ; 
and  this  after  a  careful  enumeration  of  the  stations  in 
the  journey  up  to  Kadesh.  Would  Moses  have  written 
the  history  of  his  life  in  that  way  ?  Would  anyone  have 
written  the  history  of  the  Exodus  in  that  way  who  had 
had  a  part  in  it? 

In  Numbers  xii.  3  we  find  the  statement :  "  Now  the 
man  Moses  was  very  meek,  above  all  the  men  who  were 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth."  Does  this  look  like  a  pas- 
sage written  by  Moses  ?  Do  meek  men  write  in  this  way 
about  themselves  ? 

In  Genesis  xxxvi.  31  appears  this  record:  "  And  these 
are  the  kings  that  reigned  in  the  land  of  Edom,  before 
there  reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel r  When 
was  this  written  ?  Of  course  after  there  were  Israelitish 
kings,  and  by  some  one  who  knew  of  these  kings.  Cer- 
tainly it  could  not  have  been  written  in  Moses'  day, 
before  such  kings  existed  or  were  dreamed  of.  If  an 
undated  historical  document  were  found  to-day  which 
described  some  event  as  happening  ''  before  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  President  of  the  United  States,"  could  any- 
5 


66  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

body  convince  us  that  the  document  was  of  an  earlier 
century  ?  The  mention  of  Lincoln's  presidency  fixes  a 
date  before  which  it  could  not  have  been  produced.  In 
the  same  way  the  mention  of  the  kings  over  Israel  fixes 
a  date  (three  centuries  later  than  Moses'  day)  before 
which  the  passage  in  Genesis  could  not  have  been 
written. 

We  read  in  Genesis  xii.  6,  in  connection  with  the  ac- 
count of  Abraham's  entering  Palestine,  that  "  the  Ca- 
naanite  was  then  in  the  land."  Could  this  passage  have 
been  written  by  any  other  than  a  person  living  after  the 
Canaanite  had  gone  from  the  land — that  is  to  say,  after 
Moses'  day  ?  If  I  find  in  a  historical  work  the  statement, 
"  and  the  British  were  then  in  possession  of  New  Eng- 
land," do  I  not  see  instantly  that  the  work  was  written 
at  some  time  later  than  the  beginning  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War — or  after  New  England  was  lost  to  Great 
Britain  ? 

A  similar  chronological  tell-tale  is  the  following  pas- 
sage. The  story  (given  in  Numbers  xv.  32)  of  the  man 
who  picked  up  sticks  on  the  Sabbath,  begins  with  the 
words:  "And  while  the  children  of  Israel  were  in  the 
wilderness."  Of  course  such  a  record  could  have  been 
written  only  after  the  wilderness  days  were  past.  I  will 
cite  only  a  single  other  passage.  In  Deuteronomy  xxxiv. 
10  we  read :  "  And  there  arose  not  a  prophet  since  in  Israel 
like  unto  Moses."  It  need  hardly  be  asked  whether  this 
can  be  regarded  as  of  Mosaic  authorship. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  large  number  of  passages 
found  in  all  the  Pentateuchal  books  which  betray  a  hand 
later  than  that  of  Moses.  But  the  great  proof,  rising  in 
magnitude  and  importance  above  all  others,  that  the 
books  ascribed  to  Moses  are  not  from  him,  is  found  in 


THE  PENT  A  TEUCH :   WAS  IT  WRITTEN  B  Y  MOSES?    6/ 

the  evidences  which  have  been  accumulating  for  a  cen- 
tury, as  biblical  scholarship  has  improved  and  deepened, 
showing  that  the  Pentateuch  is  a  compilation,  or,  rather, 
a  series  of  compilations,  of  late  date,  made  up  of  docu- 
ments of  different  ages,  which  scholars  are  able  to  sepa- 
rate from  each  other,  and  to  trace  in  and  out,  as  warp  and 
woof,  through  the  various  books. 

Scholars  have  always  been  puzzled  over  much  that 
they  found  in  the  Pentateuch.  Jerome,  the  one  great 
biblical  scholar  of  the  early  Church,  was.  Several  of  the 
most  learned  of  the  Protestant  reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century  were.  Many  Jewish  scholars  of  different  ages 
have  been.  Later  Christian  scholars  have  been  more 
and  more. 

The  idea  of  the  work  being  composite — a  compilation 
from  earlier  documents  which  might  be  separated  from 
each  other — was  first  suggested  by  Astruc,  a  distinguished 
professor  of  medicine  in  Paris,  in  1753.  This  has  proved 
the  key  to  the  puzzle. 

The  elements  in  the  Pentateuch  which  have  been  so 
troublesome,  and  out  of  which  the  discovery  of  its  com- 
posite character  has  come,  are  (in  part)  the  following : 

1.  Duplicate  and  even  triplicate  accounts  of  the  same 
events,  with  no  apparent  reason  for  the  repetitions. 
These  are  of  frequent  occurrence. 

2.  Contradictions  and  historical  discrepancies  of  vari- 
ous kinds. 

3.  Abrupt  transitions  and  breaks  in  the  narrative — - 
very  noticeable  in  the  English,  but  still  more  so  in  the 
original  Hebrew. 

4.  Sudden  changes  of  style,  as  if  different  men  were 
speaking,  but  with  no  intimation  of  the  departure  of  one 
and  the  coming  forward  of  another. 


68  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

5.  An  unaccountable  use  of  different  names  for  God  in 
the  Hebrew  text — here  for  a  series  of  verses,  or  even 
chapters,  the  name  Elohim  being  exclusively  used,  and 
then  the  name  Jahveh  {Jehovah) ;  ^  and  then,  without  any 
warning,  another  change  back  to  Elohim,  and  so  on. 

6.  Legislation  evidently  intended  for  an  early  and 
crude  age,  strangely  mixed  in  with  legislation  as  plainly 
intended  for  a  more  advanced  and  enlightened  age. 

7.  Religious  and  ethical  teachings  hardly  above  the 
level  of  barbarism,  and  views  of  God  plainly  polytheistic, 
and  even  fetichistic,  standing  side  by  side  with  ethical 
and  religious  teachings  and  views  of  God  of  the  loftiest 
and  purest  character. 

8.  A  strange  mixing  of  older  Hebrew  idioms  and  lan- 
guage with  later  Hebrew,  and  especially  the  extended 
anachronism  of  the  use  on  a  large  scale  of  Hebrew  of  the 
fifth  century  B.C.  in  records  of  laws  and  events  purport- 
ing to  date  from  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth. 

All  these  difficulties,  so  puzzling,  so  wholly  insoluble 
on  the  old  theory  of  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, are  easily  explained  by  the  new  view.  They  are 
exactly  what  would  be  certain  to  appear  in  a  work  pro- 
duced as  we  now  know  the  Pentateuch  was  produced. 

'  The  spelling  "  Jehovah"  is  incorrect.  The  real  name  is  probably  Jah- 
veh or  Yahweh.  (See  Appendix,  by  Russell  Martineau,  at  the  end  of 
Ewald's  "  History  of  Israel,"  vol.  ii.).  The  true  spelling  became  lost  as 
the  result  of  long  writing  it  by  mere  consonant  outlines  (ancient  Hebrew 
writing  was  all  by  consonant  outlines),  and  thus  forgetting  in  process  of 
time  what  vowels  were  to  be  supplied.  Leading  Old  Testament  scholars  are 
generally  adopting  the  spelling  Jahveh  or  Yahweh.  See  "Names,"  If  109, 
in  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Biblica." 


BOOKS  OF  THE 

OLD  TESTAMENT 

CLASSIFIED 


BOOKS   OF  TH]: 


In  the  Order  of  the  Hebrew  Bible. 


I.   The  LawK.1  Books). 

Genesis. 

Exodus. 

Leviticus. 

Numbers. 

Deuteronomy. 
JI.    The  Prophets  (8  Books) 

(The  Former  Prophets). 

Joshua. 

Judges. 

Samuel  (as  one  Book). 

Kings  (as  one  Book). 

(The  Latter  Prophets). 

Isaiali. 

Jeremiah. 

Ezekiel.  ^       ■-,  -  - 

(The  Twelve    Minor  I^rophets 
counted  as  one  Book). 

Hosea. 

Joel. 

Amos. 

Obadiah. 

Jonah. 

Micah. 

Nahum. 

Habakkuk. 
Zephaniah. 

Haggai. 
Zechariah. 
Malachi. 
in.  The  Writings  {m  Books). 
Psalms. 
Proverbs. 
Job. 

(The  Five  Rolls). 
Song  of  Songs. 
Ruth 

Lamentations. 
Ecclesiastes. 
Esther. 
Daniel. 

Ezra-Nehemiah  (as  one  Book). 
•Chronicles  (as  one  Book). 


In  the  Order  of  the 
Septuagint  (includ- 
ing  THE    O.   T.    ApOC- 

rvpha). 

The  Pentateiuh. 

Genesis. 

Exodus. 

Leviticus. 

Numbers. 

Deuteronomy. 

Joshua. 

Judges. 

Ruth. 

4    Books  of  Kings   (  =  i 

and  2  Sam.  and  i  and  2 

Kings). 
Chronicles  (as  one  Book) 

1  Esdras(=Ezra&Neh.). 

2  Esdras. 
Tobit. 
Judith. 
Esther. 
Job. 
Psalms. 
Proverbs. 
Ecclesiastes. 
Canticles. 

Wisdom  of  Solomon. 
Ecclesiasticus. 

The  Twelve  Minor  Pro- 
piiets  (in  a  diflferent 
order). 

Isaiah. 

Jeremiah. 

Baruch. 

Lamentations. 

The  Epistle  of  Jeremiah. 

Ezekiel. 

Daniel. 

Three  liooks  of  Macca- 
bees. 

The  Prayer  of  Mana.sseh. 


3LD   TESTAMENT. 


In  their  (Approximately) 
true  order,  according  to 
THE  Higher  Criticism. 


(See  Table  of  "Dates  ot 
Biblical  Literature  "'  be- 
tween pp.  5S  and  59.) 

Amos. 

Hosea. 

Isaiah. 

Micah. 

Deuteronomy. 

Nahum. 

Zephaniah. 

Jeremiah. 

Habakkuk. 

Ezekiel. 

Obadiah. 

Lamentations. 

Second  Isaiah. 

Zechariah. 

Haggai. 

Judges. 

I  and  2  Samuel. 

I  and  2  Kings. 

Joshua. 

Job. 

Ruth. 

Malachi. 

Jonah. 

Joel. 

Genesis. 

Exodus. 

Leviticus. 

Numbers. 

Song  of  Solomon. 

Ezra. 

Nehemiah. 

I  and  2  Chronicles 

Ecclesiastes. 

Esther. 

Proverbs  (final  collection). 

Daniel. 

Psalms  (final  collection). 


Classified  According  to  their 
Nature  and  Literary  Form 
(Including  the  most  Important 
Apocryphal  Books). 

I.      Ancestral  Traditions  andLawi 
(5  Books). 

Genesis. 

Exodus. 

Leviticus. 

Numbers. 

Deuteronomy. 
II.      History  (n  Books). 

Joshua. 

Judges. 

I  and  2  Samuel. 

I  and  2  Kings. 

I  and  2  Chronicles. 

Ezra. 

Nehemiah. 

I  Maccabees. 
Ill      Prophecy  U^'^ooV%). 

Isaiah. 

Jeremiah. 

Ezekiel. 

Eleven   of  the   Minor  Prophets 
(all  except  Daniel). 

IV.  Poetry  {^V>oo\.%). 

Job. 
Psalms. 
Lamentations. 
Song  of  Solomon. 

V.  "  Wisdom        Literature "        (4 

Books). 
Proverbs. 
Ecclesiastes. 
Wisdom  of  Solomon. 
Ecclesiasticus. 

VI.  Romance  (5  Books). 

Ruth. 

Jonah. 

Esther. 

Tobit. 

Judith. 

VII.  Apocalypse  (2  Books). 

Daniel. 

Enoch  (Pseudepigrapha). 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    PENTATEUCH:    ITS    COMPOSITE    CHARACTER    AND 
REAL  ORIGIN. 

Much  is  now  settled  regarding  the  Pentateuch,  but 
not  everything.  What  is  settled  ?  At  least  the  follow- 
ing important  points : 

1.  That  the  work  is  composite. 

2.  That  it  is  made  up  in  large  part  of  different  "  docu- 
ments.** 

3.  That  these  documents  are  traceable  throughout 
almost  the  entire  Pentateuch. 

4.  That  those  most  easily  traced  and  of  prime  import- 
ance are  four  in  number. 

5.  That  Deuteronomy  was  written  earlier  (not  later,  as 
has  been  generally  supposed)  than  any  other  of  the  five 
books  as  we  have  them. 

6.  That  the  Pentateuchal  legislation,  at  least  in  the 
elaborate  form  in  which  it  comes  to  us,  was  the  last  writ- 
ten part  of  the  Pentateuch.^ 

The  principal  discussion  now  is  over  the  dates  of  the 
four  documents.     What  are  these  documents  ? 

There  is  hardly  an  original  investigator  of  eminence 
who  does  not  think  that  he  finds  traces  of  others  besides 
the  four;  some  claim  to  discover  as  many  as  eight  or  ten 
additional  ones.     But  about  these  there  is  no  agreement, 

*  To  all  these  points  even  so  conservative  scholars  as  Delitzsch  and  Dill* 
mann  assent. 


70  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

except  that,  whatever  they  may  be,  they  are  relatively 
unimportant.     All  agree  that  the  four  are  pre-eminent.* 

To  these  four,  different  names  are  given  by  different 
scholars.  I  choose  the  following  as  perhaps  favored  by 
the  latest  and  best  authorities;  namely,  ih^  Jahvistic  (or 
Jchovistic)y  the  Elokisiic,  the  Deuteronomic,  and  the  Priestly 
documents,  commonly  designated  respectively  by  the 
letters  ''JT  "  ^,"  "A"  and  ''  Pr  A  few  words  about 
each  must  suffice. 

I.  The  Jahvistic  (or  Jehovistic)  document  C'y)  takes 
its  name  from  the  fact  that  in  certain  parts  of  it  the  Deity 
is  called  almost  exclusively  by  the  name  Jahveh  {Yah- 
weh),  or  Jehovah.  It  has  much  in  common  with  the  Elo- 
histic  document,  *'^" — so  much,  indeed,  that  some 
scholars  of  eminence  do  not  try  to  separate  them.  It  is 
better,  however,  to  recognize  the  two  as  distinct,  only 
bearing  in  mind  their  striking  similarities,  and  remember- 
ing that  the  great  contrasts  that  exist  are  between  these 
two  and  the  Deuteronomic  and  Priestly  documents,  par- 
ticularly the  latter.  The  Jahvistic  document  is  made  up 
almost  wholly  of  narratives.  It  is  full  of  persons  and  of 
movement.  Its  style  is  graphic.  It  excels  in  delineating 
life  and  character.     It  is  the  most  interesting  portion  of 

'  Says  Prof.  C.  A.  Briggs  :  "  There  are  no  Hebrew  professors  on  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe,  so  far  as  I  know,  who  would  deny  the  literary  analysis  of 
tlie  Pentateuch  into  the  four  great  documents.  The  professors  of  Hebrew 
in  the  Universities  of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  Edinburgh,  and  tutors  in  a 
large  number  of  theological  colleges,  hold  to  the  same  opinion.  A  very 
considerable  number  of  the  Hebrew  professors  of  America  are  in  accord 
with  them.  There  are,  indeed,  a  few  professional  scholars  who  hold  to  the 
traditional  opinion,  but  these  are  in  a  hopeless  minority.  I  doubt  whether 
there  is  any  question  of  scholarship  whatever  in  which  there  is  greater 
agreement  among  scholars  than  in  this  question  of  the  literary  analysis  of 
the  Hexateuch  "  {Presbyterian  Review,  April,  1887,  p.  340). 


THE  PENTATEUCH:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  ORIGIN.   7 1 

the  Pentateuch.  It  contains  much  ethical  reh'gious  teach- 
ing, but  it  is  generally  natural,  simple,  connected  with 
life,  not  dogmatic.  It  lingers  fondly  over  sacred  places. 
The  more  extremely  anthropomorphic  representations 
of  God  found  in  the  Pentateuch  are  generally  in  this 
document ;  as,  for  example,  his  walking  in  the  garden  at 
the  cool  of  the  day  ;  ^  his  coming  down  to  see  the  tower 
built  by  men,  and  confounding  their  speech  \^  his  meeting 
Moses  in  an  inn  and  seeking  to  slay  him  ;*^  his  swearing,^ 
and  repenting,^  and  getting  angry.*  The  document  is  de- 
cidedly **  prophetical  "  in  character  as  distinguished  from 
**  priestly.**  As  to  its  date,  there  is  some  difference  of 
judgment.  It  used  to  be  placed  later  than  that  of  the 
Elohistic,  but  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen  place  it  earlier, 
and  the  tendency  now  is  in  that  direction.  The  time 
generally  fixed  for  it  is  the  century  between  850  and 
800  B.C.,'  and  there  is  a  growing  disposition  to  make 
the  writer  a  prophet  of  the  southern  kingdom  of 
Judah. 

2.  The  Elohistic  document  {^'£'')  derives  its  name 
from  the  Hebrew  word  Elohim,  which  in  some  of  its 
parts  is  generally  used  for  God.  This  document  also, 
as  well  as  the  Jahvistic,  is  made  up  largely  of  narratives.® 
It  is  clearly  prophetical  in  its  character,  though,  perhaps, 
not  as  pre-eminently  so  as  the  other.  Its  style  is  vivid ; 
it  is  full  of  life   and  interest ;  it  is  perhaps  even  more 

»  Gen.  iii.  8.  2  q^^    ^i.  7.  3  Ex.  iv.  24. 

*  Gen.  xxiv.  7.  *  Gen.  vi.  6.  *  Ex.  iv.  14. 

'  Reuss,  H.  Schultz,  Dillmann,  Kittel,  Riehm,  Stade,  Wellhausen,  Kue- 
nen, and  many  other  critics  of  first  rank  agree  upon  this  date. 

"Not  wholly,  however.  The  legislative  element  (found  mainly  in  the 
Priestly  Code)  is  not  entirely  wanting  in  the  Jahvistic  and  Elohistic  docu- 
ments. Indeed,  the  very  earliest  legislation  of  the  Pentateuch  is  all  found 
in  these.     See  Ex.  xx.,  xxi.-xxiii.,  xxxiv. 


^2  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

objective  than  the  Jahvistic  narrative.  The  two  together 
might  well  be  called  the  story-book  of  the  Pentateuch. 
Nearly  every  one  of  the  Genesis  and  Exodus  stories 
which  children  love  are  found  in  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  documents.  The  Elohist  writer  gives  special 
prominence  to  places  and  men  of  northern  Palestine,  and 
hence  is  generally  believed  to  have  been  a  native  of  the 
Northern  Kingdom.  The  date  of  his  narrative  may  be 
set  down  as  about  800-750  B.C.* 

3.  The  third  document  is  essentially  the  Book  of  Deu-- 
teronomy^  and  is  designated  among  critics  as  "  D^  It 
differs  from  the  other  documents  in  being  found  in  the 
Pentateuch  all  in  one  place,  and  entire,  while  the  others 
have  been  broken  up  by  later  editors  and  compilers,  and 
interwoven  with  other  matter  throughout  the  several 
books. 

The  date  of  Deuteronomy  is  probably  between  650 
and  621  B.C.'  It  is  undoubtedly  the  book  which  Hilkiah 
the  priest  is  reported  to  have  found  in  the  Temple  when 
that  edifice  was  being  repaired,  and  which,  being  brought 
to  King  Josiah  and  read  to  him,  stirred  him  up  to  make 
that   great  religious  reform  described  in  2  Kings  xxii.- 


'Dillmann,  Kittel,  and  Riehm  say  900-850  B.C.  ;  Wellhausen,  Kuenen, 
and  Stade  say  about  750  B.C. 

^  Says  Professor  Driver :  "  Even  though  it  were  clear  that  the  first  four 
books  of  the  Pentateuch  were  written  by  Moses,  it  would  be  difficult  to  sus- 
tain the  Mosaic  authorship  of  Deuteronomy.  For,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
remarkable  difference  of  style,  Deuteronomy  conflicts  with  the  legislation 
of  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Numbers  in  a  manner  that  would  not  be  credible 
were  the  legislator  in  both  one  and  the  same  "  ("  Introduction  to  the  Liter- 
ature of  the  Old  Testament,"  p.  77).  The  composition  of  Deuteronomy 
is  placed  by  Ewald,  Kittel,  Robertson  Smith,  and  Driver  in  the  reign  of 
Manasseh  (697-642),  and  by  Reuss,  Kuenen,  Wellhausen,  and  Toy  in  that 
of  Josiah  (639-609). 


THE  PENTATEUCH:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  ORIGIN.    73 

xxiiL,  which  resulted  in  so  nearly  extirpating  idolatry 
from  Judah.  Thus  the  book  clearly  marks  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  the  religion  of  Israel. 

It  is  plain  that  the  author  makes  use  of  older  mate- 
rial in  his  writing/  and  yet  his  production  is  to  be  classed 
distinctly  as  an  original  composition  rather  than  as  a  com- 
pilation. The  main  body  of  the  work  shows  a  single  mind  ; 
but  the  opening  and  the  concluding  portions  are  prob- 
ably later  additions.  Though  the  author  is  unknown,  his 
book  shows  that  he  was  a  man  of  a  religious  and  progres- 
sive spirit,  who  was  warmly  in  sympathy  with  the  proph- 
ets of  the  eighth  century  and  their  work  of  religious 
reform.  He  writes  with  skill  and  power,  often  rising 
into  eloquence.  His  ethical  and  religious  teachings  are 
among  the  noblest  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  book  is 
particularly  interesting  from  the  fact  that  it  stands  at  the 
beginning  of  the  movement  which  culminated  in  the  Pen- 
tateuchal  legislation.  While  much  more  prophetic  than 
priestly  in  spirit,  it  nevertheless  seems  to  have  given  the 
initiative  to  that  sacerdotal  movement  in  Israel  which 
concentrated  the  national  worship  in  Jerusalem,  raised 
the  priests  to  unwonted  power,  turned  the  eyes  of  the 
people  to  the  past  for  revelations  of  God,  and  ended  in 
the  fully  elaborated  Levitical  Law. 

4.  The  Priestly  document  ("/***),  made  up  of  what  is 
known  as  the  Priestly  Code,  together  with  its  historical 
settings  and  various  elaborations,  is  the  largest  and  most 
important   of  the  documents,  as  it  is  undoubtedly  the 

'  We  have  seen  that  the  Jahvistic  and  Elohistic  documents  were  in  exist- 
ence a  century  and  a  half  or  two  centuries  before  this  time.  It  is  also 
probable  that  by  about  800  or  750  B.C.  a  simple  collection  of  civil  and  reli- 
gious laws  had  been  made.  There  are  indications  that  the  Deuteronomist 
drew  from  each  of  these  sources. 


74  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

latest  in  date.'  The  great  mass  of  this  document  con- 
sists of  the  Levitical  or  ritual  law,  which  is  represented 
as  having  been  given  at  Sinai.  All  else  in  the  document 
is  subordinate  to  this.  But  this  could  not  stand  alone  ; 
it  must  be  properly  introduced  ;  it  must  have  its  histori- 
cal framework.  Hence  the  document  begins  with  a  brief 
outline  history  of  the  world,  or,  rather,  of  the  ancestors 
of  the  Hebrew  people  from  Adam  to  Moses.  It  is  here 
that  we  have  those  long  genealogical  tables  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, which  alike  weary  the  reader  and  puzzle  the  chro- 
nologist  and  historian.  Into  this  introductory  history  we 
have  brought,  at  important  epochs,  certain  special  laws 
or  ''  covenants,"  as  the  Sabbath  (at  creation),  the  Noachic 
law  of  bloodshed  (Gen.  ix.),  circumcision  (Gen.  xvii.),  the 
Passover  (Ex.  xii.) — all  looking  in  the  general  direction  of 
the  great  law  and  covenant  to  be  revealed  at  Sinai  as  the 
consummation  of  all.  The  introductory  portion  over, 
then  comes  the  long  Sinaitic  legislation,  occupying  the 
last  half  of  the  Book  of  Exodus,  the  whole  of  Leviticus, 
and  most  of  Numbers ;  and  finally,  to  complete  the 
whole,  we  have  an  account  of  the  supposed  distribu- 
tion of  the  land  of  Canaan  by  lot  among  the  various 
tribes  of  Israel,  and  the  conquest  of  the  land,  running 
through  the  latter  part  of  Numbers  and  the  Book  of 
Joshua.' 

'  Professor  Driver  pronounces  it  "the  latest  of  the  sources  of  which  the 
Hexateuch  is  composed,"  belonging  "  approximately  to  the  period  of  the 
Babylonian  captivity  "  ("  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment," p.  129). 

'^  The  Book  of  Joshua  is  organically  connected  with  the  Pentateuch.  The 
three  chief  documents  of  the  Pentateuch,  "/,"  *'E"  and  "/',"  run  right 
on  through  Joshua,  for  which  reason  there  is  a  growing  tendency  among 
scholars  to  class  the  first  six  books  of  the  Old  Testament  together  under 
the  name  of  the  "^  Hexaieuch.^^ 


THE  PENTATEUCH:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  ORIGIN.    75 

This  elaborate  and  long-drawn-out  Priestly  document 
(code  and  narrative)  is  mechanical  and  dry  in  the  ex- 
treme. There  is  no  poetry  in  it,  and  no  life.  It  is  ver- 
bose, artificial,  repetitious,  tedious — particularly  the  code 
part.  The  historical  portion  draws  constantly  upon  the 
"y "  and  "-£" "  documents  for  data  ;  but  it  so  works  over 
its  narratives  as  to  destroy  all  picturesqueness,  all  natu- 
ralness, all  human  interest.  From  first  to  last  it  is  intent 
upon  one  thing ;  namely,  the  working  out  of  a  divine  pur- 
pose in  Israel's  history,  and  that  divine  purpose  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Jewish  theocracy  according  to  the 
pattern  revealed  at  Sinai.  When  and  where  did  this 
Priestly  document  originate?  It  was  undoubtedly  a 
growth.  There  are  plain  evidences  that  many  hands  and 
brains  and  hearts  labored  at  the  task  of  producing  it — 
some  directly,  others  indirectly.  The  impulse  in  a  new 
direction  given  to  Israel's  religious  development  by  the 
Deuteronomist  was  not  suffered  to  die  nor  to  stop  where 
he  left  it.  In  a  generation  came  the  exile  to  Babylon. 
This  was  favorable  to  the  priestly  influence.  The  priests 
were  already  in  possession  of  many  oral  traditions  (aim- 
ing at  the  regulation  of  civil  and  religious  life  and  private 
and  public  worship)  which  they  looked  upon  as  sacred. 
It  was  only  a  question  of  time  when  these  would  be  em- 
bodied in  written  form.  Already  there  were  many  germs 
of  ritual  in  existence.  The  priests  would  be  sure  to  make 
the  most  of  these.  Moreover,  there  was  real  need  for  a 
better  organized  worship,  one  that  should  more  ade- 
quately express  the  unifying  faith  and  the  deepening 
religious  life  of  the  people ;  and  the  new  movement  in  its 
motive  and  aim  really  meant  this. 

Babylon  was  undoubtedly  the  place  where  the  new 
Priestly  document  was   formed — mainly,  if  not    wholly. 


yS  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE, 

The  priest-prophet  Ezekiel  may  have  had  nothing  to  do 
with  it  directly  ;  but  his  glowing  vision  of  a  restored 
Temple  in  Jerusalem,  with  its  more  elaborate  worship,  its 
improved  Torah  or  Law,  and  its  new  glories,  which  was 
published  about  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  Exile  (572 
B.C.),  is  strongly  suggestive  of  the  Priestly  code,  and 
must  have  been  influential  in  preparing  the  way  for  its 
coming.  The  whole  Priestly  document  (both  the  code 
and  its  historical  setting)  was  probably  the  work  of  a 
school  of  literary  priests  (forerunners  of  the  later  scribes) 
that  sprung  up  in  Babylon  soon  after  Ezekiel.  How  long 
it  took  them  to  perform  their  task  we  cannot  tell.  The 
most  we  know  is  that  it  was  undoubtedly  completed  by 
the  time  of  Ezra,  the  Babylonian  priest  and  scribe  who 
came  to  Jerusalem  from  Babylon  at  the  head  of  a  large 
company  of  zealous  Jews,  and  in  the  year  444  introduced 
to  the  people  there,  at  a  great  gathering  called  for  the 
purpose,  a  new  "  Book  of  the  Law,"  called  the  **  Law  of 
God,"  and  the  "  Law  of  Moses,"  which  was  publicly  read 
to  the  people  day  after  day,  and  which  Ezra  bound  them 
all  with  a  solemn  covenant  to  obey.  This  Book  of  the 
Law,  thus  for  the  first  time  publicly  made  known  to  the 
Jews,  was  doubtless  the  Priestly  document.^ 

The  Four  Documents  United. — So  much  for  the 
origin  and  character  of  the  different  documents  that 
made  up  the  Pentateuch.     It  remains  now  to  add  a  word 


'  For  a  full  presentation  of  reasons  for  the  assignment  of  the  Priestly 
document  to  the  time  of  the  Exile  or  later,  see  Wellhausen's  "  History  of 
Israel,"  chaps,  i.-v.  and  viii.  For  a  briefer  treatment,  see  article  "  Penta- 
teuch" in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (by  Wellhausen);  also  see  Prof.  Robert- 
son Smith's  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  chap.  xii. 

For  a  careful  study  of  all  four  of  the  documents,  see  Professor  Driver's 
**  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,"  pp.  109-150. 


THE  PENTATEUCH:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  ORIGIN,   77 

as  to  how  and  when  they  were  combined  into  the  form 
in  which  they  come  down  to  us. 

It  is  believed  that  the  two  earliest  documents,  the 
Jahvistic  and  the  Elohistic,  circulated  for  a  considerable 
time  (perhaps  from  one  to  two  centuries)  separately, 
meanwhile  passing  through  certain  modifications.  Then 
they  seem  to  have  been  united  into  one,  not  far  from  the 
time  of  the  origin  of  Deuteronomy  (621  B.C.).  A  little 
later,  perhaps  within  a  generation  or  two,  this  united 
document  and  Deuteronomy'^  seem  to  have  been  joined 
and  put  in  circulation  as  *'  a  well-rounded  prophetic  com- 
pilation." This  takes  us  down  to  the  beginning  of  the 
Exile,  soon  after  which  the  codification  of  the  Levitical 
ritual  begins. 

During  the  exile  and  the  century  immediately  follow- 
ing it,  the  Priestly  document  (the  full  Levitical  Code  and 
its  historical  setting)  are  formed  by  stages  which  can  be 
only  dimly  traced ;  but  by  the  year  444  it  is  completed 
and  given  to  the  people  by  Ezra  as  the  new  Book  of  the 
Law.2 

There  remains  now  only  one  other  thing  to  do  to  com- 
plete the  Pentateuch.  That  one  thing  is  to  combine  this 
new  Book  of  the  Law — the  Priestly  document — with  the 
older  united  prophetic  compilation  made  up  of  the  docu- 
ments "/,"  ''  Ey  and  "  Z>."  The  hand  that  does  this  is 
very  possibly  Ezra's ;  if  not,  it  is  one  that  follows  soon 
afterward.  When  this  is  done,  and  a  little  subsequent 
editing  has  been  added,  the  Pentateuch  has  reached 
essentially  the  form  in  which  it  comes  down  to  us. 

We  thus  see  that  the  Pentateuch  may  almost  be  called 

'  Deuteronomy  had  in  the  meantime  received  an  introduction  and  aa 
appendix. 

'  Neh.  viii.-x. 


78  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

an  epitome  of  the  religion  of  ancient  Israel.  Moses  did 
not  write  it.  Like  so  much  else  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New,  its  authorship  is  unknown.  Indeed,  its 
structure  is  so  composite,  and  it  came  into  being  so 
slowly,  so  gradually,  through  so  many  changes,  and  as 
the  result  of  so  many  hands  and  so  diverse  influences, 
that  we  can  hardly,  with  any  propriety,  speak  of  author- 
ship, in  our  modern  sense,  in  connection  with  it. 

Dates  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and 
Deuteronomy. — We  may  say  with  some  assurance  that 
the  books  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Numbers 
assumed  their  present  form  from  four  and  a  half  to  four 
centuries,  and  Deuteronomy  about  six  centuries,  before 
Christ.  But  this,  of  itself,  means  little;  indeed,  it  is 
liable  to  mislead.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that  all 
the  books  draw  from  sources  older,  often  many  centuries 
older,  than  themselves.  The  traditions  of  the  Hebrew 
people  from  the  very  earliest  times — times  far  earlier 
than  Moses — are  gathered  here :  idyllic  tales  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob;  accounts  of  the  creation  and  of 
the  first  fortunes  of  the  human  race,  possibly  learned 
from  the  Babylonians  during  the  Exile ;  stories — one 
quarter  historic  and  three  quarters  legendary — of  the 
wonderful  wilderness  journey  from  bondage  in  Egypt  to 
freedom  in  the  Promised  Land.  Mingled  with  these  are 
several  brief  early  collections  of  laws  of  great  historical 
importance,  as  the  ''Ten  Words"  (Ex.  xx.),  the  '*Book  of 
the  Covenant "  (Ex.  xx.-xxiii.),  and  the  "  Little  Book 
of  the  Covenant"  (Ex.xxxiv.),  besides  a  great  deal  of  later 
legislation  and  other  matter  showing  the  religious  devel- 
opment of  Israel  for  many  hundreds  of  years.  Many  dif- 
ferent men,  working  in  different  places  and  ages,  had 
part  in  writing  all  this  out  and  gathering  it   together; 


THE  PENTATEUCH:  ITS  CHARACTER  AND  ORIGIN.   79 

and  as  Moses  was  looked  upon  as  the  great  Lawgiver, 
it  was  all  ascribed  to  him.  Well  may  Professor  Toy  say 
of  the  Pentateuch :  **  It  is  the  Israelitish  Thesaurus,  or 
Treasury  of  Traditions  and  Laws.  Each  narrative  or 
collection  of  laws  bears  the  impress  of  the  age  in  which 
it  originated ;  the  whole  is  a  panorama  of  the  religion  of 
Israel."' 

*  **  History  of  the  ReligioD  of  Israel,**  pp.  91-93. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

HEBREW  LEGEND  AND   HISTORY:    ORIGIN   OF   THE   OLD 
TESTAMENT  HISTORICAL  BOOKS. 

Because  the  Pentateuch  contains  historical  elements, 
it  is  sometimes  classed  with  the  historical  books  of  the 
Bible.  I  have  seen  fit,  however,  to  treat  it  by  itself, 
partly  because  it  has  a  distinct  unity  of  its  own,  partly 
because  even  more  important  than  its  history  is  the  leg- 
islative or  legal  element  which  it  contains,  and  partly 
because  its  study  involves  questions  the  most  difficult 
and  crucial  of  any  connected  with  Old  Testament  criti- 
cism, and  which,  therefore,  require  more  space  for  their 
treatment  than  it  will  be  necessary  to  give  to  the  other 
historical  books,  or,  indeed,  to  any  of  the  remaining 
books  of  the  Old  Testament.  As  has  already  been  inti- 
mated, we  shall  find  that  what  we  have  discovered  as  to 
the  composite  character  of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  late 
origin  of  the  priestly  legislation,  is  a  key  that  will  go  far 
toward  opening  up  the  significance  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
volume. 

A  Legendary  Background  to  all  Early  History. — 
The  history  of  all  ancient  peoples  extends  back  until  it 
merges  into  a  shadowy  realm  of  tradition,  legend,  and 
myth.  We  know  how  true  this  is  of  the  early  history  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  Says  Grote,  in  the  preface  to  his 
"History  of  Greece**:  "I  describe  the  earlier  times  by 
themselves,  as  conceived  by  the  faith  and  feeling  of  the 
first  Greeks,  and  known  only  through  their  legends,  with- 


HEBREW  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY.  8 1 

out  presuming  to  measure  how  much  or  how  little  of 
historical  matter  these  legends  may  contain.  If  the 
reader  blame  me  for  not  assisting  him  to  determine  this 
— if  he  ask  me  why  I  do  not  undraw  the  curtain  and  dis- 
close the  picture — I  reply  in  the  words  of  the  painter 
Zeuxis,  when  the  same  question  was  addressed  to  him  on 
exhibiting  his  masterpiece  of  imitative  art :  *  The  curtain 
is  the  picture.'  What  we  now  read  as  poetry  and  legend 
was  once  accredited  history,  and  the  only  genuine  history 
which  the  first  Greeks  could  conceive  or  relish  of  their 
past  time." 

This  illustrates  well  the  early  condition,  not  simply  of 
the  Greeks,  but  also  of  nearly  all  other  ancient  peoples, 
the  Hebrews  included.  It  is  only  a  little  while  since  the 
vast  background  of  "  shadowy  times  and  persons "  of 
early  Greek  legend  and  myth  was  supposed  to  be,  in 
large  part  at  least,  real  history.  So,  too,  it  is  only  since 
Niebuhr  that  the  legends  of  early  Rome  have  been  de- 
tached from  Roman  history.  A  hundred  years  ago  the 
stories  of  Romulus  and  Remus,  the  elder  Brutus,  the  Tar- 
quins,  the  Horatius  who 

*'  kept  the  bridge 
In  the  brave  days  of  old," 

were  all  supposed  to  be  reliable  narratives  of  real  persons 
and  events.  But  now  no  respectable  historian  thinks  of 
treating  them  as  anything  else  but  legends. 

The  same  change  in  the  method  of  treating  early  He- 
brew history  is  rapidly  making  its  appearance.  The  best 
writers  are  more  and  more  distinguishing  between  the 
earlier  period  of  legend  (and  perhaps  also  myth),  and  the 
later  period  of  real  history. 

"  It  is  most  clearly  evident,"  says  Kuenen,  "  that  the 
6 


82  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE, 

Old  Testament  narratives  of  Israel's  earliest  fortunes  are 
entirely  upon  a  par  with  the  accounts  which  otJier  nations 
have  handed  down  to  us  concerning  their  early  history. 
That  is  to  say,  their  principal  element  is  legend.  The 
remembrance  of  the  great  men  and  of  the  important 
events  of  antiquity  was  preserved  by  posterity.  Trans- 
mitted from  mouth  to  mouth,  it  gradually  lost  its  accuracy 
and  precision,  and  adopted  all  sorts  of  foreign  elements. 
The  principal  characteristics  which  legend  shows  among 
other  ancient  nations  are  found  also  among  the  Israel- 
ites." ^ 

How  far  back  can  we  find  Reliable  History  among 
the  Hebrews  ? — Kuenen  claims  that  the  historical  period 
among  the  Hebrew  people  cannot  be  carried  back  with 
any  certainty  beyond  the  eighth,  or,  at  most,  the  ninth, 
centur\'  B.C.  Not  but  that  there  is  much  true  history 
eairlier,  but  by  that  time  we  are  at  the  end  of  any  definite 
authentic  records.  Now  we  launch  out  upon  tradition ; 
or,  if  we  find  other  records,  they  are  scrappy,  and  come 
to  us  without  credentials.  Professor  Toy  thinks  we  have 
reliable  Bible  narratives  that  go  back  to  looo  or  1200  B.C. 

Elijah,  Elisha,  Solomon,  and  David  are  historical  char- 
acters.^ Much  that  comes  to  us  concerning  them  stands 
all  our  tests  of  investigation.  Yet  much  also  does  not. 
A  legendary  element  is  apparent  in  our  accounts  of  them. 
The  same  is  true  of  Saul  and  Samuel,  as  well  as  of  most 
or  all  of  the  Judges — Deborah,  Gideon.  Jephthah,  Sam- 
son, and  the  rest ;  though  the  story  of  Samson  is  so  full 
of  legend  and  myth  that  it  is  pretty  hard  to  find  any  his- 
tory in  it.    Moses  is  historic  ;  Joshua  may  be ;  but  there  is  a 

^  "  Religion  of  Israel,"  vol.  i.,  p.  22. 

*  Elijah  began  his  public  work  aboat  870  b  c.  Solomon  became  king 
about  973,  and  David  about  loio  B.C. 


HEBREW  LEGE.VD  AXD  HISTORY'.  83 

very  large  legendary  element  in  the  accounts  that  come  to 
us  of  the  Conquest  and  the  Exodus.-  Scholars  succeed 
in  separating,  to  some  extent,  between  the  legend  and 
the  histor>-,  but  after  they  have  exhausted  all  their  critical 
resources  there  is  much  remaining  in  doubt. 

Earlier  than  the  Exodus  all  is  shadow  ;  in  the  twilight 
we  catch  glimpses  of  what  are  doubtless  historic  characters 
and  real  events,  but,  strain  our  eyes  much  as  we  will,  we 
can  make  out  little  that  is  certain.- 

However,  let  us  not  conclude  that  because  what  comes 
to  us  from  the  earlier  ages  of  Israel's  existence  is  so 
largely  legendar}%  it  is  therefore  valueless.  No  conclu- 
sion could  be  less  warranted.  True,  it  has  little  value  as 
history ;  but  history  is  not  the  only  valuable  form  of  lit- 
erature. In  the  poetry  of  a  people,  in  the  ballads  and 
songs  of  a  people,  in  the  legends  and  traditions  of  a  people, 
we  often  have  a  more  precious  legacy  even  than  in  its 
chronicles.  The  poems  of  Homer  reveal  to  us  the  Greek 
people  of  his  time — their  hopes  and  fears,  loves  and  hates, 
joys  and  sorrows,  aspirations,  yearnings,  worship — the 
whole  world,  indeed,  of  their  deepest  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, as  no  mere  historic  narrative  of  facts  could  do.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  legends  of  the  Old  Testament.  They 
are  the  products  and  the  sur\*ivals  of  what  was  deepest 
and  most  sacred  in  the  thoughts,  feelings,  beliefs,  wor- 
ships of   those  important  early  ages  when  the  Hebrew 

1  The  true  date  of  the  Exodus  from  Egypt  under  Moses  is  probably  about 
1300.  Then  follows  the  conquest  of  Canaan,  a  slow  process  lasting  at  least 
one  or  two  centuries,  perhaps  more.  In  the  margin  of  our  common  English 
Bibles  the  dates  of  these  events  are  erroneously  given  as  1491  and  1451-1427. 

*  See  Kuenen's  "  Religion  of  Israel,"  vol.  i.,  chap.  ii. ;  "  Bible  for  Learners,** 
vol.  i. ;  particularly  chap.  xi. ;  Heilprin's  "  Historical  Poetry  of  the  Ancient 
Hebrews,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  II-17  seq.;  H.  P.  Smith's  "Old  Testament  History," 
chaps,   i-iv. :    Kent's  "  Heroes   and   Crises    of   Early   Hebrew   History." 


84  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

people  were  laying  the  foundations  of  their  national  life, 
and  building  up  within  themselves  that  strength  and 
quality  of  moral  fibre  which  was  later  to  revolutionize 
the  religion  of  the  world.^ 

Bible  History  subject  to  the  same  Canons  of  Criti- 
cism as  other  History. — The  theory  is  widely  held  that 
the  history  found  in  the  Bible  is  radically  different  from 
all  other  history — that  it  arose  under  wholly  different 
conditions,  that  it  is  to  be  measured  by  different  stand- 
ards, and,  above  all,  that  it  claims  and  possesses  a  free- 
dom from  error  elsewhere  unknown.  But  scholarship 
gives  no  support  to  this  theory.  Says  the  conservative 
Professor  Ladd  upon  this  subject :  "  We  have  no  claim 
to  historic  infallibility  set  up  in  the  Bible,  or  even  to  un- 
usual freedom  from  errors  of  an  historical  kind.  Neither 
does  it  appear  that  God  has  ever  revealed  to  men  the 
exact  character  and  order  of  past  events  where  no  record 
of  the  events  themselves  has  been  kept.  For  their  facts 
the  sacred  authors  of  the  biblical  histories  appear  always 
to  have  been  dependent  upon  the  ordinary  resources. 
Some  things  of  their  own  time  they  witnessed  for  them- 
selves, or  learned  from  others  who  had  witnessed  them  ; 


*  For  a  collection  of  legends  of  Old  Testament  characters,  gathered  from 
sources  outside  the  Bible,  see  Baring-Gould's  "  Book  of  Old  Testament 
Legends."  For  Greek  legends,  see  Grote's  "  History  of  Greece,"  vol.  i. 
For  a  graphic  account  of  the  process  by  which  legends  have  their  birth,  see 
Macaulay's  Introduction  to  his  "  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome."  For  a  discussion 
of  the  mythical  element  in  the  Bible,  see  Goldziher's  "  Hebrew  Mythology  "  ; 
also  chapter  on  "The  Mythical  Element  in  the  New  Testament,"  in  Dr. 
Hedge's  "Ways  of  the  Spirit."  On  the  general  subject  of  myths  as  con- 
nected with  religion,  see  Clodd's  "Childhood  of  Religion";  Muller's 
*'  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,"  vol.  ii.;  Tyler's  "  Primitive  Culture," 
vol.  i. ;  Fiske's  "Myths  and  Myth-makers"  ;  Lang's  "  Myth,  Ritual,  and 
Religion  "  ;  Cox's  and  other  works  on  mythology. 


HEBRE  W  LEGEND  AND  HISTOR  Y,  8$ 

Other  things  they  accepted  as  currently  reported.  There 
were  traditions,  oral  and  written,  which  claimed  to  give 
an  account  of  what  had  taken  place  in  the  more  remote 
past.  The  later  writers  had  for  use  the  documents  and 
books  composed  by  the  earlier  ones.  The  biblical  his- 
torians possessed,  in  brief,  just  such  kinds  of  sources  of 
information  with  respect  to  previous  events,  as  ancient 
historians  generally  possessed."  ^ 

To  sum  up,  then  :  The  verdict  of  unbiassed  scholarship 
regarding  the  historical  portion  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
that  it  contains  a  great  deal  of  reliable  and  valuable  his- 
tory— indeed,  that  among  the  historical  works  coming 
down  to  us  from  the  ancient  world,  few  are,  on  the 
whole,  so  trustworthy  as  the  Bible ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  that  it  contains,  under  the  name  of  history,  much 
that  is  only  tradition  and  legend,  and  not  infrequently 
it  makes  mistakes  as  to  fact ;  so  that,  to  ascertain  what  in 
its  pages  is  really  reliable  history  and  what  is  not,  we 
are  compelled  to  resort  to  precisely  the  same  methods 
of  critical  research  and  verification  which  we  apply  to  all 
other  books. 

The  Old  Testament  Historical  Books. — With  so 
much  of  introduction,  let  us  proceed  to  make  brief  in- 
quiry regarding  the  date  and  authorship  of  the  several 
Old  Testament  historical  books,  in  the  order  in  which 
they  stand  in  our  canon. 

Aside  from  the  Pentateuch  they  are  twelve  in  number. 
Classing  them  according  to  their  contents,  they  fall  into 
two  series,  the  first  series  being  made  up  of  the  first  seven 
books — Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth,  i  and  2  Samuel,  and  I 
and  2  Kings ;  and  the  second  series  being  composed  of 

»  •*  What  is  the  Bible  ?"  p.  227. 


86  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

the  last  five  books — i  and  2  Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehe- 
miah,  and  Esther.  The  first  series  connects  closely  with 
the  Pentateuch,  taking  up  the  thread  of  Israel's  history 
where  Numbers  and  Deuteronomy  lay  it  down,  and  bring- 
ing it  straight  on  down  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  the  carrying  away  of  the  people 
captive  to  Babylon — thus,  taken  with  the  Pentateuch, 
forming  a  continuous  history  of  the  world,  or,  rather,  of 
that  part  of  the  world  represented  by  the  Israelites  and 
their  ancestors,  from  the  Creation  to  the  Exile.  The 
second  series  also  begins  its  narrative  with  Adam,  bridges 
rapidly  the  long  space  from  Adam  to  David  with  a  series 
of  genealogical  tables,  and  then  continues  the  history, 
with  some  fullness,  but  with  a  very  decided  bias  in  favor 
of  the  priestly  class,  on  down  to  a  hundred  years  after 
the  close  of  the  Exile — that  is,  to  the  second  visit  of 
Nehemiah  to  Jerusalem  in  the  year  432  B.C.  Thus  we 
have  the  whole  period  of  Israel's  history  covered,  as  far 
as  the  Exile,  twice  over,  by  these  twelve  historical 
books. 

The  Book  of  Joshua. — The  sixth  book  of  the  Bible, 
and  the  first  after  the  Pentateuch,  gives  evidence,  as  has 
been  already  said,  of  a  close  organic  connection  with  the 
preceding  five  books.  The  three  Pentateuchal  docu- 
ments, '*y,"  *'  ^,"  and  "  P,"  are  plainly  traceable  through 
it.  It  also  shows  marks  of  a  revision  by  an  editor  who 
does  his  work  in  the  spirit  of  Deuteronomy.  It  is  the 
last  book  of  the  Hexateuch.  It  narrates  the  crossing  of 
the  Jordan  by  the  Israelites,  their  conquest  of  Palestine 
west  of  the  Jordan,  the  allotment  of  the  country  among 
the  tribes,  and  the  closing  events  in  the  life  of  Joshua. 
Its  narratives  have  to  be  taken  with  much  allowance,  for 
it  is  certain,  from  numerous  evidences  which  appear  later. 


HEBREW  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY,  87 

that  Palestine  was  not  conquered  by  the  Israelites  at  so 
early  a  day  in  any  such  thorough  manner  as  is  here  de- 
scribed. In  this  connection  it  is  gratifying  to  find  reason 
to  believe  that  the  terrible  slaughters  of  women  and 
helpless  children  described  in  this  book  are  largely  fic- 
tions. The  book  is  a  late  production,  based  on  earlier 
traditions.  It  was  composed  about  the  same  time  with 
Exodus  and  Numbers,  after  the  Exile,  perhaps  between 
450  and  400  B.C. 

The  Book  of  Judges. — This  book  takes  its  name  from 
the  local  heroes  (twelve  or  thirteen  in  number)  whose 
exploits  form  its  main  subject.  It  purports  to  take  up 
the  history  of  Israel  where  the  Book  of  Joshua  leaves  it, 
carrying  it  on  for  four  hundred  and  ten  years.  But  it  is 
probable  that  some  of  its  earlier  narratives  are  really 
duplicates  of  some  in  Joshua  ;  ^  and  it  is  certain  that  its 
time  limit  must  be  shortened,  perhaps  to  about  two  hun- 
dred years.  The  period  it  covers  is  one  of  great  rude- 
ness ;  civilization  as  yet  is  very  imperfect,  government  is 
unsettled,  civil  wars  abound,  morals  are  low ;  there  is 
much  violence  and  cruelty  ;  ephods  and  images  and  the 
gods  of  the  Canaanites  are  worshiped  by  the  Israelitish 
people  side  by  side  with  Jahveh,  their  own  national 
deity.  The  narratives  of  the  book  give  a  graphic  picture 
of  society  in  this  early  period,  but  they  are  much  mixed 
with  legend.  Probably  the  main  stories  were  gathered  into 
a  single  collection  near  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century. 
But,  if  so,  the  collection,  or  book,  was  revised  and  impor- 
tant additions  made  to  it  quite  in  the  prophetic  spirit  of 
Deuteronomy,  during  or  very  soon  after  the  Babylonian 
Exile. 


»  Compare  Judg.  i.  21  with  Josh.  xv.  63  ;  Judg.  i.  10-15  with  Josh.  xv. 
14-19  ;  Judg.  i.  27-28  with  Josh.  xvii.  12-13  ;  Judg.  i.  29  with  Josh.  xvi.  10. 


88  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

The  Book  of  Ruth  does  not  follow  Judges  in  the 
Hebrew  canon,  but  stands  far  over  toward  the  latter  part 
of  the  Old  Testament,  after  Psalms,  Proverbs,  and  Job. 
The  only  reason  for  placing  it  here  seems  to  be  that  it 
portrays  a  state  of  society  such  as  that  which  we  have 
seen  to  have  existed  at  the  close  of  the  Book  of  Judges. 
It  is  a  most  charming  idyl  of  domestic  life,  and  forms 
a  pleasing  contrast  with  the  darker  pictures  of  the  pre- 
ceding book.  It  was  probably  written  about  430,  as  a  pro- 
test against  the  stern  legalism  of  Ezra.^ 

The  Books  of  i  and  2  Samuel  were  originally  a 
single  book.  The  prophet  Samuel  is  the  most  prominent 
figure  in  the  earlier  part,  hence  the  books  are  called  by 
his  name.  They  take  the  history  of  Israel  on  through 
the  events  that  lead  up  to  the  monarchy,  through  the 
reign  of  Saul,  and  nearly  through  that  of  David.  Several 
long  sections  give  evidence  of  having  been  written  by  a 
single  hand,^  but  most  of  the  books  is  a  compilation.  In 
some  parts  the  narrative  is  formed  of  two  separate  narra- 
tives woven  together,  which  sometimes  conflict,  and  even 
flatly  contradict  each  other.^  The  books  are  probably 
the  work  of  a  prophet  writing  during  the  period  of  the 
Babylonian  Exile,  but  with  a  few  later  additions. 

The  Books  of  i  and  2  Kings,  like  the  two  Books  of 
Samuel,  formed  originally  one  book.  They  trace  the  his- 
tory of  the  Israelitish  people  from  David's  nomination 
of  Solomon  to  be  his  successor,  through  the  reign  of 
Solomon,  the  division  of  the  kingdom,  the  varying  for- 
tunes of  the  two  kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Judah,  to  the 


*  Driver  thinks  before  the  Exile  ;  Ewald,  Bertheau,  Kuenen,  Wellhausen, 
and  Toy  think  during  or  after. 

'  The  most  extended  are  i  Sam.  xv.  to  2  Sam.  v.,  and  2  Sam.  ix.-xx. 
'  Compare  i  Sam.  xvi.  17-23  with  xvii.  1-18,  55-58. 


HEBREW  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY,  89 

beginning  of  the  captivity  in  Babylon.  These  books 
differ  from  all  of  the  preceding  historical  books  in  the 
fact  that  they  refer  repeatedly  to  other  authorities  for 
additional  information  upon  points  under  treatment. 
These  authorities. are,  (i)  for  the  reign  of  Solomon,  the 
"  Book  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon  " ;  (2)  for  the  kingdom 
of  Israel,  the  "  Books  of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of 
Israel  "  (referred  to  seventeen  times)  ;  (3)  for  the  kingdom 
of  Judah,  the  "  Book  of  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah  " 
(referred  to  fifteen  times).  Again  and  again  we  read, 
"  And  the  rest  of  the  acts  of  Solomon,  and  all  that  he 
did,  and  his  wisdom,  are  they  not  written  in  the  Book  of 
the  Acts  of  Solomon  ?  "  ;  "  And  the  rest  of  the  acts  of 
Ahaz  which  he  did,  are  they  not  written  in  the  Book  of  the 
Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah  ?  "  etc.,  etc.  The  books 
thus  referred  to  are  lost.  They  were  probably  official 
records  of  some  kind,  or  works  based  upon  such  official 
records.  The  compiler  of  the  Books  of  Kings  is  not 
known.  He  writes  in  the  spirit  of  Deuteronomy,  by 
which  work  he  has  almost  certainly  been  influenced. 
Wellhausen  and  Kuenen  think  his  work  was  substan- 
tially completed  before  the  Exile  (making  its  date  there- 
fore between  620  and  600  B.C.) ;  but  there  is  a  growing 
consensus  of  judgment  that  this  is  too  early  by  half  a 
century. 

The  Books  of  i  and  2  Chronicles  were  also  origi- 
nally a  single  book.  As  previously  stated,  they  form  the 
beginning  of  the  second  great  group  of  Old  Testament 
histories — the  other  three  books  of  the  group  being  Ezra, 
Nehemiah,  and  Esther.  Indeed,  it  is  plain  from  many 
unmistakable  indications  that  these  five  books  really  form 
a  single,  continuous  work. 

The  Books  of    Chronicles  begin  their  narrative  with 


90  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

Adam  and  end  with  the  captivity  in  Babylon.  Thus  they 
cover  ground  which  has  already  been  covered,  particu- 
larly duplicating  (with  changes  and  in  a  different  spirit) 
much  that  is  found  in  Samuel  and  Kings.  One  naturally 
wonders  what  is  the  need  of  these  Books  of  Chronicles, 
when  in  so  many  ways  they  run  parallel  to  what  has 
been  written  before.  The  explanation  is,  they  were 
written  late,  and  in  the  interest  of  the  hierarchy,  the 
temple  ritual,  the  Levitical  legislation — to  give  these 
standing  and  a  historic  environment. 

They  take  the  old  history  of  the  nation,  add  to  it 
and  subtract  from  it,  and  in  various  ways  remold  it,  with 
the  constant  aim  of  exalting  the  priests,  the  Law,  and 
the  temple-worship.  It  is  speaking  moderately  to  say 
that  they  are  much  less  reliable  as  history  than  Samuel 
or  Kings.^ 

As  to  the  date  of  these  books,  I  cannot  do  better  than  to 
quote  the  words  of  Professor  Driver :  '*  They  contain  many 
indications  of  being  the  compilation  of  an  author  living 
long  subsequently  to  the  age  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah — 
in  fact,  not  before  the  close  of  the  Persian  rule.  A 
date  shortly  after  332  B.C.  is  thus  the  earliest  to  which 
the   composition    of    the   Chronicles   can    be    plausibly 

'  Says  Professor  Toy  :  **  The  difference  between  the  Books  of  Kings  and 
Chronicles  is  this  :  Kings  (which  is  a  continuation  of  Judges  and  Samuel) 
was  written  by  a  prophet  during  the  Babylonian  Exile  ;  it  gives  the  history 
of  both  the  southern  kingdom  of  Judah  and  the  northern  kingdom  of 
Israel,  and  its  object  is  to  show  that  the  nation's  prosperity  was  in  propor- 
tion to  its  obedience  to  Jahveh.  Chronicles  was  written  by  a  priest  or  a 
Levite  more  than  two  hundred  years  later  ;  it  gives  the  history  of  Judah 
only,  and  its  object  is  to  show  that  the  nation's  prosperity  was  in  propor- 
tion to  its  observance  of  the  temple-service.  Much  that  Chronicles  says  of 
the  temple-service  is  not  reliable"  (*'  History  of  the  Religion  of  Israel," 
^p.  39-40). 


HEBREW  LEGEND  AND  HISTORY.  9 1 

assigned,  and  it  is  that  which  is  adopted  by  most  modern 
critics."  ^ 

The  Book  of  Ezra  is  united  in  the  Jewish  canon  with 
Nehemiah.  It  takes  up  the  thread  of  Jewish  history  at 
the  return  of  the  exiles  from  Babylon  under  Zerubbabel, 
536  B.C.,  and  carries  it  forward  intermittently  for  a  hundred 
years.  The  book  naturally  divides  into  two  parts.  The 
first  part  tells  the  story  of  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple, 
and  the  second  part  that  of  the  effort  made  by  Ezra  to 
get  the  Jews  who  had  married  foreign  wives  to  divorce 
them.  It  seems  to  contain  certain  '^  memoirs  "  from  the 
pen  of  Ezra,  but  the  book  as  a  whole  is  a  compilation 
made  long  after  Ezra's  age,  and  seemingly  by  the  same 
man  who  compiled  Chronicles  and  Nehemiah.  The  book 
is  written  partly  in  Hebrew  and  partly  in  Aramaic — the 
language  (closely  related  to  the  Hebrew)  spoken  by  the 
Jewish  people  after  their  return  from  the  Exile. 

The  Book  of  Nehemiah  is  simply  a  continuation  of 
Ezra.  It  relates  two  important  events — the  rebuilding 
of  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  presentation  to  the 
people  by  Ezra  of  the  new  Book  of  the  Law,  which  was 
undoubtedly  the  Levitical  legislation  essentially  as  we 
have  it  in  the  Pentateuchal  books  of  Exodus,  Leviticus, 
and  Numbers.  This  latter  event  marks  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  Israel.  When  the  people  of  Jerusalem  listened 
to  the  reading  of  this  new  book  by  Ezra,  and  bound 
themselves  by  a  solemn  covenant  to  accept  and  obey  it, 
the  old  simple  religion  of  the  prophets  was  dead,  and  the 
new  Jewish  Church,  with  its  elaborate  ceremonial,  its 
priestly  hierarchy,  its  sacrificial  system,  and   its  temple 

^  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,"  p.  486.  Ewald, 
Bertheau,  Schrader,  Dillmann,  Ball,  Oettli,  Kuenen,  and  Toy  fix  the  date  as 
late  as  this  ;  Noldeke  puts  it  a  hundred  years  later  still  (about  200  B.C.). 


92  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

ritual,  was  born.  The  literature  springing  immediately 
out  of  the  great  change,  giving  it  its  historical  setting  and 
justification,  was  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah. 

The  Book  of  Esther  is  rather  a  historical  romance 
than  a  history.  It  tells  how  Esther,  a  beautiful  Jewess, 
living  in  Susa,  the  Persian  capital,  rose  to  be  the  queen 
of  King  Ahasuerus  (Xerxes),  and  saved  her  countrymen 
from  a  terrible  plot  which  had  been  laid  for  their  destruc- 
tion by  the  king's  favorite  courtier,  Haman.  The  object 
of  the  story  is  to  give  an  account  of  the  Jewish  Feast  of 
Purim,  which  is  still  celebrated  the  14th  and  15th  of  the 
month  Adar,  the  date  of  the  supposed  deliverance.^  The 
book  is  morally  and  religiously  of  a  low  order.  It  has 
often  been  pointed  out  that  it  does  not  contain  the  name 
of  God  ;  but,  worse  than  that,  its  spirit  throughout  is 
narrow,  secular,  revengeful.  Ewald  says  that  in  passing 
to  Esther  from  the  other  Old  Testament  books,  we 
"  fall  from  heaven  to  earth."  The  only  noble  character 
in  the  story  is  Vashti,  the  Persian  queen,  whose  place  is 
given  to  the  beautiful  but  cruel  Esther.  The  majority 
of  critics  believe  the  book  to  have  been  written  not 
earlier  than  332  B.C.  (the  beginning  of  the  Greek  period)^ 
and  possibly  as  late  as  the  year  200.^ 

*  About  the  ist  of  March. 

*  Among  them  Ewald,  Bleek,  Noldeke,  Dillmann,  Bcrthcau,  Oettii, 
Driver,  and  Toy. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

HEBREW  PROPHECY:    ORIGIN  OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 
PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

The  Prophetical  Books  as  Histories. — It  is  not  gen- 
erally understood  how  important  are  the  prophetical 
books  as  a  basis  for  the  historical  study  of  the  Bible.  We 
naturally  think  that  for  biblical  history  we  must  go  to 
the  distinctly  historical  books.  But  it  is  now  recognized 
by  scholars  that  the  most  reliable  sources  of  historical 
knowledge  we  have  are  the  prophecies.  These  are  origi- 
nal documents  to  an  extent  to  which  the  histories  are  not. 
The  histories  are  composites;  we  do  not  know  who  wrote 
them.  We  do  know  who  wrote  a  large  part  of  the 
prophecies.  As  far  as  possible,  therefore,  a  sound  scholar- 
ship will  test  the  histories  by  the  prophetical  books. 
The  higher  biblical  criticism  of  to-day  is  doing  this. 
It  is  examining  the  whole  Old  Testament  with  the  great- 
est care  in  the  light  of  the  prophetical  books — testing 
everything  else  by  these  most  certainly  authentic  wit- 
nesses.^ 

The  Rise  and  Character  of  Hebrew  Prophecy. — Be- 
fore proceeding  to  a  study  of  these  books,  a  few  words 
should  be  said  about  the  prophets  as  a  class,  and  the  gen- 
eral subject  of  prophecy. 

Though  we  have  no  prophetical  writings  of  an  earlier 

*  Sec  Kuenen's  **  Religion  of  Israel  "  as  perhaps  the  best  illustration  of 
this. 


94  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

date  than  the  eighth  century  before  Christ,  we  must  not 
suppose  that  Hebrew  prophecy  began  with  that  period. 
It  goes  back  at  least  to  Samuel's  day  (1050  B.  c),  and  per- 
haps earlier ;  for  we  read  both  that  Samuel  was  a  prophet 
himself,  and  that  he  organized  schools  or  communities  of 
prophets. 

This  early  prophetism,  however,  was  of  a  low  order ; 
it  was  closely  connected  with  soothsaying  or  fortune- 
telling,  and  the  manifestation  of  a  kind  of  unintelligent 
religious  enthusiasm  or  frenzy.^  Nevertheless,  there  was 
in  it  a  moral  element,  which  steadily  grew  until  the 
prophets  became  a  great  moral  power  in  the  nation. 

The  prophets  were  leaders  in  the  worship  of  Jahveh,  as 
distinguished  from  the  worship  of  the  Canaanitish  gods 
which  widely  prevailed  for  some  centuries  after  the  Con- 
quest. At  first  they  were  not  monotheists — that  is,  they 
did  not  teach  that  Jahveh  was  the  only  god,  but  only  that 
he  was  IsraeVs  god,  and  more  powerful  than  the  gods  of 
other  nations.  But  from  this  they  rose,  by  degrees,  to 
the  belief  that  he  was  the  God  of  all  the  world. 

There  was  a  steady  rise,  too,  in  their  conception  of 
Jahveh's  character.  It  is  true  that  they  identified  his  will, 
even  from  the  first,  with  justice  and  righteousness ;  but 
their  conception  of  these  was  so  imperfect  that  they 
were  able  to  think  of  him  as  being  pleased  with,  and  even 
demanding,  what  to  us  is  morally  shocking ;  as,  for  exam- 
ple, the  "  hewing  of  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord  in 
Gilgal  "  by  Samuel,  or  the  slaying  of  the  four  hundred 
and  fifty  prophets  of  Baal,  at  the  brook  Kishon,  by  Elijah. 
All  this,  however,  is  by  degrees  left  behind ;   and  by  the 


'  Samuel  himself  seems  to  have  taken  money  from  persons  for  telling 
them  where  to  find  lost  things.     See  i  Sam.  ix.-x. 


HEBREW  PROPHECY,  95 

time  we  reach  the  eighth  century,  we  find  the  prophets  o{ 
Jahveh  beheving  and  teaching  an  ethical  monotheism  of 
a  very  high  order,  from  which  they  never  afterward  lapse 
or  recede. 

The  Predictive  Element  in  Hebrew  Prophecy. — The 
popular  conception  is  that  the  main  work  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  was  that  of  predicting  future  events.  Nothing 
could  be  farther  from  the  truth. ^  We  must  put  this  notion 
wholly  away  before  we  can  understand  their  real  influence. 
Above  everything  else,  they  were  moral  and  religious 
preachers  and  reformers.  Their  great  word  was  *'  right- 
eousness." *'  God  is  righteous,  and  demands  righteous- 
ness in  his  people.  The  righteous  nation  he  will  save  ;  the 
unrighteous  nation  he  will  destroy  " — this  was  the  burden 
of  their  message.  True,  there  was  often  in  their  prophecy 
a  predictive  element.  But  it  was  never  the  main  thing. 
Always  it  grew  directly  out  of  the  deeper  fnoral  message  ; 
it  was  the  announcement  of  a  penalty  which  would  come 
if  the  moral  message  was  not  heeded.  Thus  the  prediction 
was  always  conditional,^  and  always  connected  with  the 
times  of  the  prophet  who  uttered  it.^ 

The  prophet  loved  his  nation  with  a  passionate  love. 
With  all  his  soul  he  desired  for  it  safety,  prosperity,  and 
peace.  He  believed  the  only  way  these  could  possibly 
be  secured  was  by  righteous  obedience  to  Jahveh.    There- 

*  "  We  have  reason  to  doubt  whether  prophetic  inspiration  ever  results 
in  the  clear  and  definite  knowledge  of  some  single  occurrence  which  is  to 
take  place  in  the  future."    (Ladd's  "  Doctrine  of  Sacred  Scripture,"  vol.  i., 

P-  347-) 

'  See  Jer.  xviii.  7-10. 

'  '*  The  prophet  speaks  always,  in  the  first  instance,  of  his  own  contem« 
poraries  :  the  message  which  he  brings  is  intimately  related  with  the  circum- 
stances of  his  time."  (Driver's  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old 
Testament,"  p.  224.) 


96  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

fore  he  urged  such  obedience,  exhorted  to  it,  promised 
rewards  to  come  from  it,  warned  against  neglect  of  it. 
At  one  time  he  saw  danger  threatening  from  Assyria,  at 
another  from  Babylon,  at  another  from  Egypt.  "  Re- 
pent," he  cried;  "turn  from  your  idols:  put  away  your 
sins ;  else  the  blow  will  fall,  the  destruction  will  come/ 
Thus  he  foretold  the  inevitable  consequences  which  he 
foresaw,  as  he  believed,  must  follow  the  nation's  obedience 
or  disobedience  of  Jahveh,  its  God. 

One  thing  more  the  prophet  did :  he  kept  the  nation 
from  despair.  In  dark  days,  when  calamity  had  fallen, 
when  the  oppressor's  heel  was  heavy  on  prostrate  Israel, 
hope  lighted  its  fires  in  the  prophet's  soul.  Jahveh 
would  not  utterly  forsake  his  people ;  he  would  repent 
him  of  his  severity;  he  would  make  bare  his  arm  to 
help ;  he  would  raise  up  a  deliverer}  Thus  it  was  that 
the  prophets  prophesied  for  hundreds  of  years — strength- 
ening the  nation's  allegiance  to  Jahveh,  quickening  its 
conscience,  deepening  its  moral  life,  keeping  alive  its 
hope  in  the  darkest  midnights  of  disaster  and  oppression. 

The  Prophets  not  Inerrant. — But  these  prophets 
were  men,  and  hence  were  not  inerrant.  Not  infre- 
quently disasters  which  they  threatened  did  not  come, 

'  The  hope  of  a  deliverer  was  what  was  known  as  the  Messianic  expecta- 
tion. It  took  many  different  forms.  Perhaps  the  most  common  was  that 
of  a  king  like  unto  David  (Messiah  means  "  anointed  " — as  kings  were 
consecrated  to  their  office  by  anointing),  whom  it  was  hoped  and  believed 
God  would  some  time  raise  up  and  place  on  the  throne  of  David,  to  break 
the  hated  yoke  of  foreign  dominion,  and  make  Israel  once  more  a  power 
and  a  glory  on  the  earth.  See  Martineau's  "  Seat  of  Authority,"  pp.  326- 
358  ;  Keim's  "  Jesus  of  Nazara,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  314-327  ;  Toy's  "  Judaism  and 
Christianity"  (Index,  "Messiah");  James  Drummond's  *' The  Jewish 
Messiah";  Briggs'  "Messianic  Prophecy";  Riehm's  "Messianic  Proph- 
ecy" ;  Kuenen's  "  Prophets  and  Prophecy  in  Israel." 


HEBREW  PROPHECY.  97 

and  deliverances  which  they  promised  did  not  appear. 
Moreover,  all  the  prophets  had  their  individual  charac- 
teristics, which  were  not  always  ideal.  Often  they  were 
stern,  unbending,  and  ascetic  men,  unnecessarily  repelling 
by  the  severity  of  their  speech.  Then  there  were  false 
prophets,  whom  it  was  hard  to  tell  from  the  true.  And 
there  were  in  those  times,  as  now,  prophets  who  "■  proph- 
esied smooth  things,"  to  curry  public  favor.  However, 
such  were  very  likely  then  as  now  sooner  or  later  to  come 
to  grief ;  and  certainly  the  utterances  of  few  such  have 
been  preserved.  If  there  is  anything  upon  which  critics 
agree,  it  is  that  the  prophetical  writings  which  come  down 
to  us  in  the  Old  Testament  are,  in  the  main,  honest  and 
earnest  writings. 

The  Prophetical  Books :  Their  Origin,  Date,  and 
Authorship. — We  are  now  ready  to  take  up  the  different 
prophetical  books  in  their  order,  to  inquire  briefly  re- 
garding the  origin,  date,  and  authorship  of  each. 

There  are  two  different  orders  in  which  these  books 
may  be  studied.  One  is  the  chronological  order,  or  the 
order  of  the  dates  of  their  composition.  This  order  is 
clearly  the  natural  one.  The  other  is  the  order  in  which 
they  stand  in  our  Bible,  which  is  about  as  far  from  chron- 
ological, and  therefore  about  as  unnatural,  as  possible. 
This  order  has  in  itself  little  or  nothing  to  recommend  it. 
And  yet,  because  it  is  the  order  of  our  Bible,  perhaps  it 
will  be  on  the  whole  the  least  confusing  and  the  most 
easily  followed.     I  shall  therefore  conform  to  it. 

The  Book  of  Isaiah  is  the  first  of  the  prophetical 
writings,  as  we  arrange  the  canon.  But  the  Jews  did  not 
so  reckon  it.  The  division  of  the  Bible  which  they  called 
the  "  Prophets  "  began  with  six  books  which  we  class  as 
histories,  and  which  I  have  already  considered  as  such  ; 


gS  ORIGIN-  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE. 

namely,  Joshua,  Judges,  First  and  Second  Samuel,  and 
First  and  Second  Kings.  These  they  called  the  '*  Earlier 
Prophets."  After  these  they  placed  Isaiah  and  the  rest 
of  the  prophetical  books  as  we  have  them,  except  that 
they  left  out  Daniel  and  Lamentations,  which  we  include, 
giving  these  a  place  in  the  division  of  the  Bible  which 
they  called  the  Hagiography,  or  The  Writings.^ 

Isaiah  is  not  the  earliest  of  the  prophetical  books,  and 
there  seems  to  be  no  reason  for  placing  it  first  except  its 
length  and  importance.  Two,  and  perhaps  three,  others 
take  precedence  of  it  in  age ;  namely,  Amos,  Hosea,  and 
possibly  Micah.  It  is  a  very  long  book,  of  sixty-six 
chapters ;  but  it  is  not  all  from  one  hand.  Chapters  I  to 
XXXIX,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  passages,^  are  un- 
doubtedly from  the  prophet  Isaiah.  Chapters  XL  to  LV 
are  the  production  of  an  unknown  author  living  nearly  two 
centuries  later,  probably  in  Babylon.  For  want  of  any 
other  name  he  is  often  called  the  Second  Isaiah.  Chapters 
LVI  to  LXVI  are  probably  later  still,  and  their  authorship 
also  is  unknown. 

Isaiah  belonged  to  a  distinguished  family,  and  is  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  Old  Testament  characters.  He  came 
forward  as  a  prophet  in  Jerusalem  about  the  year  740  B.C., 
and  had  a  public  career  of  forty  years.  He  was  a  states- 
man as  well  as  a  prophet.  He  witnessed  the  war  of 
Syria  and  Ephraim  against  Judah,  the  fall  of  Samaria, 
and  tl>e  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Assyrian  Sennacherib. 
The  safety  and  welfare  of  the  nation  was  the  constant 
burden  of  his  thought  and  speech.     The  Bible  has  no 


'  The  Jews  separated  their  Scriptures  into  the  three  general  divisions,  (i) 
the  Law,  (2)  the  Prophets,  and  (3)  the  Hagiography. 

'  Chaps,  xiii.,  xiv.  I-23,  xv.,  xvi.  I-I2,  and  probably  xxi.,  xxxiv.,  and 
atxxv. 


HEBREW  PROPHECY. 


99 


more  noble,  eloquent,  or  powerful  writer  than  Isaiah,  unless 
it  be  the  Second  Isaiah.  When  the  anonymous  portion  of 
the  book  came  to  be  attached  to  that  written  by  Isaiah  is 
not  known.  It  could  not  have  been  until  after  the  Exile, 
and  very  likely  it  was  by  accident.  Isaiah  wrote  between 
740  and  700  B.C. 

The  Book  of  Jeremiah. — The  prophet  Jeremiah  en- 
tered upon  his  work  as  a  public  religious  teacher  in  Jeru- 
salem during  the  reign  of  Josiah,  in  the  year  626  B.C.  He 
was  a  man  of  lofty  spirituality  and  ardent  patriotism. 
Like  Isaiah,  he  lived  in  troubled  times.  He  saw  the  fall 
of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  the  destruction  of  the  Holy 
City,  and  the  deportation  of  the  people  into  captivity, 
but  he  himself  was  not  carried  away.  Later  he  went 
with  many  of  his  countrymen  to  Egypt,  where  he 
died.  The  aim  of  his  prophecies  was  to  save  his  nation 
from  the  dangers  that  threatened.  There  was  never  a 
more  earnest  preacher  of  righteousness.  The  various 
prophecies  that  make  up  his  book  do  not  stand  in  chron- 
ological order.  Who  gathered  them  together  we  do 
not  know,  but  it  cannot  have  been  Jeremiah  himself. 
The  last  three  chapters  are  almost  certainly  from  a  later 
writer.  ^  Jeremiah's  date  is  from  626  to  580  B.C.,  about  a 
century  and  a  quarter  after  Isaiah. 

The  Book  of  Lamentations  is  made  up  of  five  beau- 
tiful and  very  pathetic  poems  of  mourning  over  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  sufferings  of  the  peo- 
ple occasioned  thereby.  In  our  Bible  it  is  ascribed  to 
Jeremiah,  but  the  weight  of  scholarship  is  against  this 
judgment.     It  was  probably  written  about  the  time  of 


*  Chap.  X.  1-16  is  also  regarded  by   many   scholars  as  spurious.     See 
especially  the  Aramaic  verse,  x.  11. 


lOO  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

Jeremiah's  death — that  is,  near  580  B.C.  Its  author  is 
unknown. 

The  Book  of  Ezekiel  follows  closely  in  point  of  time 
upon  the  Book  of  Jeremiah,  Its  author,  a  priest  as  well 
as  a  prophet,  was  carried  off  to  Babylonia  with  ten 
thousand  other  captives  in  the  year  597,  eleven  years  be- 
fore the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  There  he  labored  as  a 
prophet  until  about  the  year  570.  His  book  contains  mes- 
sages of  reproof,  warning,  and  comfort  to  Israel;  proph- 
ecies against  various  surrounding  nations,  and,  most 
notable  of  all,  a  great  and  striking  vision  of  a  temple  to 
be  built  in  Jerusalem,  an  improved  ritual  of  worship,  and 
a  restored  Israel  In  this  vision  he  particularly  manifests 
the  priestly  spirit,  and  paves  the  way  for  that  priestly  leg- 
islation which  is  coming  in  its  fullness  later.  It  is  plain 
that  the  code  of  Exodus  and  Numbers  could  not  have 
been  in  existence  when  this  vision  was  written.  Ezekiel's 
style  is  marked  by  the  boldness  of  its  imagery.  His 
thought  is  ecclesiastically  and  perhaps  theologically 
dogmatic  and  narrow,  but  his  ethical  standards  are  high. 
The  date  of  his  prophecies  is  593-570  B.C. 

The  Book  of  Daniel. — A  book  could  hardly  be  more 
out  of  place  than  is  the  Book  of  Daniel,  standing  here, 
fifth  in  order  among  the  prophetical  books.  It  used  to 
be  believed  that  it  belonged  with  Ezekiel  and  Jeremiah  in 
point  of  time,  since  Daniel,  its  supposed  author,  lived  in 
Babylon  during  the  Captivity.  But  now  the  best  schol- 
arship is  agreed  that  it  was  written  by  a  writer  whose 
name  is  unknown,  living  in  the  time  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  (about  165  B.C.),  to  encourage  the  Jews  to 
hold  out  against  the  oppressions  of  that  monarch,  and 
to  assure  them  of  speedy  deliverance.  Daniel's  name  was 
attached  to  it  for  the  purpose  of-  giving  it  added  weight 


HEBREW  PROPHECY.  lOI 

and  influence.  Thus  we  see  that  it  is  really  the  latest  of 
all  the  prophetical  books.  Indeed,  it  is  hardly  to  be  called 
prophetical.  The  Jews,  as  has  already  been  said,  did  not 
so  class  it.  It  was  one  of  the  last  of  the  Old  Testament 
writings  to  be  admitted  into  the  canon,  and  many  schol- 
ars have  always  doubted  whether  its  admission  was  justi- 
fiable. It  is  an  apocalypse  rather  than  a  prophecy.  Its 
fanciful,  high-colored  visions  of  the  future  ally  it  with  the 
apocalyptical  Book  of  Enoch  and  the  Sibylline  oracles, 
which  were  written  about  this  time,  and  which  had  much 
influence  upon  the  Jews  and  upon  early  Christianity. 
One  such  book  found  its  way  (though  with  difficulty)  into 
the  New  Testament ;  namely,  the  Revelation. 

The  Book  of  Hosea. — This  book  is  the  first  of  the 
twelve  short  prophetical  writings  commonly  known  as 
the  Minor  Prophecies.  By  the  Jews  they  were  grouped 
together  as  one  book.  We  shall  notice  them  separately, 
but  they  do  not  need  to  detain  us  long. 

In  passing  from  Daniel  to  Rosea,  we  go  back  from  the 
latest  to  the  next  to  the  earliest  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophecies.  That  is,  we  leap  backward  five  hundred 
years.  Hosea  lived  in  the  northern  kingdom  of  Israel, 
and  prophesied  between  the  years  746  and  722  B.C. 

The  Book  of  Joel. — We  probably  have  here  to  make 
a  long  leap  forward,  for  though  there  is  uncertainty  as 
to  when  the  prophet  Joel  lived,  scholarship  inclines  to 
place  him  at  least  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  later  than 
Hosea,  or  about  the  year  400  B.C.,  during  the  Persian 
period. 

The  Book  of  Amos. — And  now  we  must  take  another 
long  leap  backward,  to  the  very  beginning  of  written 
prophecy,  Amos  being  the  earliest  prophet  of  all  those 
whose  writings  have  been  preserved.     He  was  an  owner 


I02  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

and  tender  of  sheep  and  cattle.  He  lived  originally  in 
Judah,  but  seems  to  have  spent  his  prophetical  life  in 
the  Northern  Kingdom.  His  prophecies  are  of  a  high 
order.  They  were  directed  against  the  idolatry  and 
wickedness  of  his  time.  It  has  already  been  pointed  out 
that  Amos  and  his  younger  contemporary,  Hosea,  seem 
to  have  been  the  first  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  to  teach 
a  pure  ethical  monotheism.  This  was  probably  about 
750  B.C. 

The  Book  of  Obadiah  is  very  short,  and  relatively 
unimportant.  Its  single  chapter  consists  of  a  prophecy 
against  Edom.  The  prophet  Obadiah  is  unknown  to  us 
save  through  this  brief  writing.  His  date  is  about  580 
B.C.,  a  little  after  the  devastation  of  Jerusalem. 

The  Book  of  Jonah. — In  this  book  we  have  some- 
thing unique,  and  of  more  than  ordinary  interest.  The 
prophet  Jonah  is  a  historical  character,  of  whom  we 
have  mention  in  2  Kings  xiv.  25.  But  this  work  can- 
not be  from  him.  It  was  probably  written  in  the  fifth 
century,  and  is  a  work  of  pure  fiction — a  religious  apo- 
logue. The  age  from  which  it  came  (that  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah)  was  one  of  intense  legalism  and  narrowness, 
which  would  fence  in  the  Jews  from  all  the  rest  of  the 
world,  as  the  only  people  for  whom  God  cares.  The 
book  is  a  protest  against  this  spirit.  By  means  of  the 
story  of  the  prophet  sent  to  preach  to  Nineveh,  a  heathen 
city,  it  shows  God's  love  and  mercy  to  be  world-wide. 
Regarded  as  history,  the  book  contains  absurdities  which 
no  ingenuity  can  explain  away.  But  as  a  work  of  fiction, 
written  to  teach  a  lesson  of  religious  tolerance,  it  is  one 
of  the  noblest  books  in  the  Bible. 

The  Book  of  Micah. — In  Micah  we  have  one  of  the 
earlier  prophets,  living  in  the  eighth  century  (735-702 


HEBREW  PROPHECY.  IO3 

B.C.),  contemporaneous  with  the  prophet  Isaiah.  In  spirit 
he  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  gloomy  ;  one  of  his  lead- 
ing thoughts  was  that  of  retribution — God's  sure  punish- 
ment of  the  people  for  their  sins.  The  Assyrians  were 
threatening :  he  predicts  great  devastations  from  them, 
but  eventual  victory  and  deliverance  for  Israel.  His 
utterances  often  suggest  Isaiah.  There  is  no  purer  or 
loftier  religious  teaching  found  in  the  Old  Testament 
than  that  of  some  of  his  passages. 

The  Books  of  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  and  Zephaniah. — 
These  prophecies  all  come  from  the  seventh  century  B.C. 
— Nahum's  and  Zephaniah's  from  about  the  year  630,  and 
Habakkuk's  from  about  605.  They  are  directed  against 
the  surrounding  nations,  and  have  no  characteristics  that 
demand  especial  mention. 

The  Book  of  Haggai  dates  from  the  year  520  B.C.,  a 
few  years  after  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  the  Babylo- 
nian captivity.  It  is  an  earnest  exhortation  to  the  gover- 
nor and  people  to  rebuild  the  temple  in  Jerusalem. 

The  Book  of  Zechariah  is  noticeable  in  the  fact  that 
it  contains  writings  from  three  different  prophets.  The 
Zechariah  (son  of  Berechia,  son  of  Iddo)  who  wrote  chap- 
ters i.  to  viii.  was  a  contemporary  of  Haggai,  whom  he 
aided  in  his  efforts  to  bring  about  the  rebuilding  of  the 
temple.  As  to  the  time  of  the  second  author,  who  wrote 
chapters  ix.  to  xi.,  critics  are  much  divided.  Some 
assign  him  to  the  seventh  century  B.C.,  and  some  to  the 
fourth.  There  is  not  much  more  certainty  as  to  the  date 
of  the  third  author,  from  whom  came  chapters  xii.  to 
xiv.  How  the  mistake  came  to  be  made  of  putting  the 
three  different  prophecies  together  as  one,  we  cannot  tell. 
Possibly  the  writers  may  all  have  had  the  same  name,  or 
names  very  similar,  and  this  may  have  caused  it. 


I04  ORIGIN-  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE, 

The  Book  of  Malachi  stands  in  our  canon  as  the  last 
of  the  prophecies,  and  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  date  given  to  it  there  is  397  B.C.,  which  is  not  far 
from  right,  the  best  authorities  assigning  it  to  about  the 
year  420  B.C.  It  is  permeated  by  the  legal  spirit,  the 
spirit  of  Ezra,  from  whose  age  it  comes. 

This  completes  our  glance  at  the  various  prophetical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  glance  has  been  brief, 
and  yet  sufficient  to  give  us  the  main  facts  as  to  their 
dates  and  authorship,  as  scholarship  has  brought  these  to 
light  ;  and  also  sufficient  to  show  that  more  earnest,  more 
honest,  more  intensely  real,  more  intensely  natural  and 
human  utterances,  or  utterances  of  greater  moral  power, 
or  of  more  permanent  religious  significance  to  the  world, 
were  never  penned,  than  some  of  these  prophecies  of 
ancient  Israel/ 

The  golden  age  of  Hebrew  prophecy  was  the  eighth  and 
seventh  centuries — that  is,  the  two  centuries  immediately 
preceding  the  Captivity  in  Babylon.  The  greatest  name 
in  those  centuries  is  Isaiah,  The  prophetic  spirit  blazed 
up  again  with  renewed  splendor  for  a  little  while  at  the 
time  of  the  Captivity,  in  Jeremiah  and  the  Second  Isaiah  ; 

'  Readers  who  desire  to  make  a  more  extended  study  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophetical  books  are  referred  to  the  following  works  :  Kuenen's 
"  Religion  of  Israel,''  "  Prophets  and  Prophecy  in  Israel,"  and  "  National 
Religions  and  Universal  Religions,"  lects.  ii.  and  iii.;  Driver's,  Davidson's, 
and  other  Introductions  to  the  Old  Testament ;  Robertson  Smith's  "  Prophets 
of  Israel,"  and  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  chap.  x.  ;  articles 
"  Prophet,"  by  W.  R.  Smith  and  A.  Harnack,  and  "  Israel,"  by  Wellhausen, 
in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  :  Noyes'  **  Translations  of  the  Prophets,  with 
Notes"  ;  Ewald's  "  Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament"  ;  Renan's  "  History 
of  the  People  of  Israel,"  vols.  ii.  and  iii.;  Stanley's  "  Plistory  of  the  Jewish 
Church,"  vol.  i.,  lects.  xviii.-xx. ;  Riehm's  "Messianic  Prophecy";  Herford's 
*'  Prophecies  of  the  Captivity." 


HEBREW  PROPHECY.  I05 

and  after  the  Captivity  also  there  were  prophets ;  but  a 
decline  had  set  in.  Now  a  different  power  was  rising  to 
the  ascendant,  the  power  of  the  priests.  Men  were  more 
and  more  turning  their  eyes  to  the  past.  Tradition  was 
growing  in  influence.  Codes  of  law  were  drawn  up  ;  and 
more  and  more  these  usurped  the  place  of  the  prophets' 
open  vision.  Here  and  there  a  fresh  prophetic  voice  was 
lifted  up,  but  it  seemed  like  an  echo  from  the  past. 
Under  the  pressure  of  the  legal  system  and  the  hierarchy 
that  rapidly  developed  after  the  Exile,  prophecy  waned 
and  died,  not  to  appear  again  until  it  rose  in  that 
splendid  final  re-birth  which  gave  the  world  Christianity. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

HEBREW  POETRY  :    ORIGIN  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 
POETICAL  BOOKS. 

Hebrew  poetry  is  very  ancient,  going  back  far  beyond 
historic  times.  With  the  Hebrews,  as  with  most  other 
peoples,  the  earliest  form  of  literary  expression  of  thought 
and  feeling  was  rhythmical.  In  the  Pentateuch  and  the 
historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  there  are  preserved 
many  poetical  pieces,  some  longer  and  some  shorter, 
which  are  doubtless  much  more  ancient  than  their  set- 
ting; it  seems  likely  that  they  were  composed  by  un- 
known bards,  and  repeated  or  sung  from  generation  to 
generation  among  the  people,  before  they  found  a  place 
in  the  histories  where  they  now  are.^ 

There  are  also  in  the  prophetical  writings  of  the  Old 
Testament  many  poetical  passages.    Indeed,  as  the  greater 

'  Among  the  more  important  of  these  are  the  Blessing  of  Jacob,  Gen. 
xlix. ;  the  Songs  of  Moses  and  Miriam  at  the  Red  Sea.  Ex.  xv. ;  several 
brief  poetical  passages  (taken  from  the  "  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord  "), 
Num.  xxi. ;  the  Prophecy  of  Balaam,  Num.  xxiii.-xxiv. ;  the  Song  of  Moses, 
and  the  Blessing  of  Moses,  Deut.  xxxii.-xxxiii. ;  some  lines  about  the  standing 
still  of  the  sun  and  moon  at  Gibeon  and  Ajalon  (from  the  Book  of  Jasher), 
Josh.  x. ;  the  Song  of  Deborah  and  Barak,  Judg.  v.;  David's  Lament  over 
Jonathan,  2  Sam.  i.  (from  the  Book  of  Jasher) ;  the  Song  and  the  Last  Words 
of  David,  2  Sam.  xxii.-xxiii.  It  should  be  noted  that  there  is  much  differ- 
ence of  judgment  about  the  dates  of  these  passages.  Some  are  doubtless 
ancient  ;  others  contain  lines  or  longer  fragments  that  are  ancient ;  others 
give  signs  of  being  nearly  or  quite  as  late  as  the  historical  writings  in  which 
they  arc  imbedded. 


HEBREW  POETRY.  lO/ 

prophets,  like  Isaiah  and  the  Second  Isaiah,  rise  to  their 
loftiest  strains,  their  prose  tends  constantly  to  become 
imaginative  and  emotional  in  its  character,  and  to  take  on 
rhythmic  forms,  and  thus  to  pass  over  into  poetry.  Thus 
the  line  between  poetry  and  prose  in  the  Bible  is  not 
always  clearly  drawn. 

There  are,  however,  five  books,  not  falling  under  the 
head  of  history  or  prophecy,  which  may  properly  be 
classed  by  themselves  as  Poetical  Books.  These  are  Job, 
Psalms,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  the  Song  of  Solomon. 
Let  us  inquire  very  briefly  concerning  the  origin,  author- 
ship, and  character  of  each  of  these. 

The  Book  of  Job  stands  first.  By  common  consent 
this  is  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  splendid  poems  of 
the  world.  In  structure  it  is  essentially  dramatic,  while 
in  aim  it  is  didactic.  It  has  a  prose  introduction,  and  a 
very  short  prose  conclusion,  but  the  great  body  of  the 
work  is  highly  poetical.  That  there  was  a  real  personage 
named  Job,  and  that  he  was  an  eminent  and  a  good  man, 
who  passed  through  some  such  disasters  as  those  depicted 
in  this  book,  is  somewhat  probable.  And  yet,  that  the 
work  as  a  whole  is  a  creation  of  the  imagination  is  be» 
yond  question. 

The  poem  is  a  portion  of  what  is  known  as  the  wis* 
dom-literature  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  It  is  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  author  to  answer  the  question.  Why 
does  God  permit  calamity  and  suffering  to  come  upon 
the  righteous?  Especially  it  is  an  effort  to  refute  the 
prevailing  notion  of  the  time  that  disasters  are  sent  upon 
men  as  punishments  for  their  sins,  so  that  it  can  be  known 
whether  a  man  is  good  or  bad  by  the  outward  prosperity 
or  adversity  that  attends  him.  Against  this  idea  the 
whole  nature  of  the  writer  protests,  and  in  the  form  of  a 


I08  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE. 

story  he  constructs  an  elaborate  argument  to  refute  it. 
The  story  is  of  a  pious  man  named  Job,  supposed  to  live 
in  patriarchal  times,  and  in  the  land  of  Uz.  For  a  long 
time  he  is  prosperous  in  the  highest  degree :  he  has  sons 
and  daughters,  flocks  and  herds  in  great  numbers,  wealth 
and  honors.  Suddenly  great  misfortunes  befall  him  ;  he 
loses  his  possessions,  he  loses  all  his  children  ;  to  crown 
his  miseries,  he  is  stricken  with  a  terrible  disease.  Three 
friends  come  to  condole  with  him ;  in  accordance  with 
the  popular  belief,  they  urge  him  to  contrition,  for  it  must 
be  on  account  of  his  great  sins  that  all  these  calamities 
have  been  sent  upon  him.  But  Job  stoutly  maintains 
that  he  is  not  a  great  sinner,  and  never  has  been ;  that  he 
has  always  walked  in  integrity  and  justice,  and  if  he  can 
only  see  God  he  will  plead  his  cause  before  him  face 
to  face,  and  prove  his  innocence.  Notwithstanding  his 
sufferings,  he  does  not  lose  his  confidence  in  God.  An 
explanation  of  suffering  suggested  by  one  of  the  charac- 
ters of  the  book  is  that  it  is  sent  to  make  men  better. 
When  Job  and  his  friends  are  done  speaking,  Jahveh  is 
represented  as  appearing  upon  the  scene  and  answering 
them  all,  in  one  of  the  sublimest  passages  in  literature ; 
not  deigning  to  explain,  but  in  the  most  magnificent 
imagery  affirming  his  eternal  power  and  wisdom,  which 
puny  man  may  not  presume  to  comprehend,  but  to  which 
it  is  his  duty  and  highest  wisdom  reverently  to  bow. 
The  poem  ends  by  representing  Job  as  regaining  his 
prosperity  and  happiness. 

As  an  answer  to  the  profound  question  with  which  it 
sets  out,  the  book  can  be  pronounced  only  partially  suc- 
cessful. But  as  to  its  literary  merits,  and  especially  as 
to  the  splendor  of  many  of  its  individual  passages,  it  can 
hardly  be  overpraised.     It  lacks,  however,  in  unity,  and 


HEBREW  POETRY.  IO9 

scholars  are  almost  unanimous  in  the  judgment  that  it 
contains  matter  which  is  from  a  later  hand  than  that  of 
the  original  writer.  The  speech  of  Elihu  (chaps,  xxxii.- 
xxxvii.)  falls  under  this  head,  as  possibly  also  does  the 
prose  ending  (xlii.  7-17),  the  discourse  on  Wisdom  in 
chapter  xxviii.,  and  several  other  less  important  passages. 
There  has  been  much  conjecture  as  to  the  authorship 
of  the  book.  In  past  ages,  before  the  birth  of  criti- 
cal Bible  scholarship,  it  was  common  to  look  upon  the 
poem  as  a  narrative  of  literal  history,  and  then  its  com- 
position was  often  assigned  to  the  age  of  Moses,  and  even 
to  Moses  himself.  But  all  this  has  passed  by.  All  that 
can  be  said  is  that  its  authorship  is  unknown,  and  will 
probably  always  remain  so.  So,  too,  we  are  in  doubt  as 
to  the  place  of  abode  of  the  author.  Some  critics  have 
said  in  Northern  Palestine,  some  in  Southern,  some  in 
the  extreme  Southeastern,  some  in  Arabia.  The  latest 
and  most  competent  judgment  inclines  toward  Southern 
Palestine.  The  same  judgment  also  inclines  strongly 
toward  a  comparatively  late  date  for  the  poem.  Says 
Prof.  A.  B.  Davidson  :  "-  Only  late,  when  the  [Jewish] 
state  began  to  receive  fatal  blows  from  without,  and 
when  through  revolution  and  civil  discord  at  home  great 
and  unmerited  sufferings  befell  the  best  citizens  in  the 
state,  would  such  problems  [as  those  which  form  the  bur- 
den of  the  Book  of  Job]  arise  with  an  urgency  that  de- 
manded some  solution.  .  .  .  Job  probably  has  behind 
it  some  public  calamity  which  forced  the  question  of  evil 
on  men's  minds  with  an  urgency  that  could  not  be  re- 
sisted. Such  a  calamity,  wide  and  national,  could  be 
nothing  less  than  the  dismemberment  or  subjugation  of 
the  state.  .  .  .  Somewhere  in  the  troubled  period  be- 
tween the  early  part  of  the  seventh  and  the  early  part 


no  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

of  the  fifth  century  the  poem  may  have  been  writtea 
Ewald  and  many  distinguished  writers  on  the  book  support 
the  earlier  date,  while  on  the  part  of  living  scholars  there 
is  rather  a  growing  feeling  that  the  book  is  later  than  some 
of  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah."  This  would  carry  it  into 
the  period  of  the  Captivity.  Kuenen  thinks  the  calamity 
referred  to  was  the  defeat  and  death  of  Josiah  (609  B.C.), 
half  a  generation  before  the  Captivity.  Much  weighty 
critical  judgment  incHnes  to  the  later  and  heavier  calam- 
ity of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the  kingdom  of  Judah 
(586  B.C.).  Indeed,  there  are  not  wanting  critics  of  high 
rank  who  bring  the  authorship  of  the  book  down  a  hun- 
dred years  this  side  of  the  Captivity,  to  the  period  of 
Ezra.  Professor  Toy,  our  highest  American  authority 
on  Old  Testament  criticism,  is  among  these.* 

The  Book  of  Psalms. — Perhaps  of  no  book  in  the 
Bible  is  it  easier  to  understand  the  origin  and  signifi- 
cance, than  of  the  Psalter,  if  we  but  bear  in  mind  that 
it  is  the  Psalter,  the  hymn-book  of  the  Jewish  Church. 
We  know  how  hymn-books  come  into  existence  in  our 
day.  Biblical  scholarship  shows  with  ever  increasing 
clearness  that  the  Book  of  Psalms  which  we  find  in  our 
Old  Testament  came  into  existence  in  essentially  the 
same  way.     It  grew  as  the  needs  of  the  Hebrew  people 

'  For  a  condensed  statement  of  reasons  for  placing  the  date  as  late  as  the 
Captivity,  see  Driver's  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment." Among  the  best  works  on  the  Book  of  Job  as  a  whole  are  T.  K. 
Cheyne's  "  Job  and  Solomon  "  ;  A.  B.  Davidson's  Book  of  Job,  with  notes, 
in  Cambridge  Bible  ;  also  his  article  on  "  Job  "  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Bri- 
tannica  ;  Ewald's  "  Book  of  Job  "  (translation  published  by  Williams  &  Nor- 
gate,  London)  ;  Driver's  and  S.  Davidson's  Old  Testament  Introductions  ; 
article  on  "  Job  "  in  Froude's  "  Short  Studies,"  vol.  i. ;  Momerie's  "  Modern 
Christianity,  and  other  Sermons  "  (a  large  part  devoted  to  an  analysis  of  Job); 
Genung's  •'  Epic  of  the  Inner  Life." 


HEBREW  POETRY.  Ill 

grew  ;  it  grew  as  the  hymnology  of  the  people  developed, 
enlarged,  became  richer.  We  call  it  one  book,  and  so  it 
is.  Yet  it  is  made  up  of  five  smaller  books.  That  is  to 
say,  five  distinct  collections  of  psalms  are  traceable  in  it. 
Book  I.  (or  Collection  I.)  includes  Psalms  i.  to  xli.,  and 
ends  with  the  doxology  : 

"  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel, 
From  everlasting  and  to  everlasting. 
Amen,  and  Amen." 

Book  II.  includes  Psalms  xlii.  to  Ixxii.,  and  ends  with 
the  doxology  : 

"  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God,  the  God  of  Israel, 
Who  only  doeth  wondrous  things  : 
And  blessed  be  his  glorious  name  forever  ; 
And  let  the  whole  earth  be  filled  with  his  glory. 
Amen,  and  Amen." 

Book    III.  begins   with    Psalm    Ixxiii.  and    ends  with 
Psalm  Ixxxix.,  concluding  with  the  doxology  : 

"  Blessed  be  the  Lord  for  evermore. 
Amen,  and  Amen." 

Book  IV.  includes  Psalms  xc.  to  cvi.,  and  ends  with 
the  doxology : 

**  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel, 
From  everlasting  even  to  everlasting. 
And  let  all  the  people  say.  Amen. 
Praise  ye  the  Lord." 

Book  V.  includes  Psalms  cvii.  to  cl.  (the  end)  and  con- 
cludes with  a  doxological  psalm  : 

"  Praise  ye  the  Lord. 

Praise  God  in  his  sanctuary: 

Praise  him  in  the  firmament  of  his  power,"  etc. 

Says  Prof.  Robertson  Smith  :  "  The   doxologies,  with 
the  exception  of  that  in  Book  IV.,  plainly  form  no  part 


112  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

of  the  psalms  to  which  they  are  attached,  but  mark  the 
end  of  each  book,  after  the  pious  fashion,  not  uncommon  in 
Eastern  literature,  to  close  the  composition  or  transcrip- 
tion of  a  volume  with  a  brief  prayer  or  words  of  praise."  * 

These  five  books  or  collections  of  psalms  were  formed 
at  different  times,  probably  most  if  not  all  of  them  for 
use  in  the  second  temple.  Finally  all  the  collections 
were  gathered  into  one,  thus  forming  the  Book  of  Psalms 
as  we  have  it.  This  could  not  have  been  much  if  any 
earlier  than  the  year  1 50  B.C. 

What  is  to  be  said  as  to  the  question  of  authorship  ? 
If  we  turn  to  our  common  English  version,  we  find  that  a 
large  number  of  the  individual  psalms  have  titles.  Some 
of  these  titles  purport  to  give  the  time  when  and  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  psalms  were  composed,  and 
the  names  of  the  writers.  Many  of  the  titles  are  such 
as  these:  "A  Psalm  of  David";  "A  Psalm  of  Asaph"; 
**  A  Psalm  of  Solomon " ;  *'  A  Psalm  of  David  when 
Nathan  the  prophet  came  to  him  after  he  had  sinned 
with  Bathsheba  "  ;  "A  Psalm  of  David  when  Doeg  the 
Edomite  came,"  etc.  If  these  titles  are  reliable,  we 
have  here  considerable  information  as  to  the  authors 
of  the  various  psalms  and  the  occasion  of  their  compo- 
sition. Are  they  reliable  ?  It  is  the  almost  unanimous 
verdict  of  scholarship  that  they  are  not.  They  are  of 
a  late  date,  probably  not  in  a  single  case  coming  from 
the  original  writer  of  a  psalm.  Says  Professor  Driver : 
"  They  contain  no  authentic  tradition  respecting  the 
authorship  of  the  psalms,  or  the  occasions  on  which  they 
were  composed."  ^ 

'  "  Old  Testament  in  Jewish  Church,"  p.  184. 

'  "  Introduction  to  Literature  of  Old  Testament,"  p.  352. 


HEBREW  POETRY.  II3 

It  used  to  be  the  common  belief  that  most  of  the 
psalms  were  written  by  David.'  Now  no  scholar  of  any 
standing  holds  to  the  Davidic  authorship  of  more  than  a 
few.  Ewald  says  eleven ;  Hitzig,  fourteen ;  Delitzsch, 
forty-four.  Dr.  Robertson  Smith  is  able  to  point  out  only 
two  that  he  feels  sure  are  David's.  Kuenen  and  Reuss 
think  none  are  from  David.  Professor  Toy  thinks  the 
same.  Professor  Cheyne  doubts  whether  any  psalms  are 
even  pre-exilic.  Professor  Driver  gives  up  the  problem 
after  a  careful  presentation  of  the  arguments  pro  and 
con,  saying  :  "  On  the  whole,  a  Non  liquet  must  be  our 
verdict  :  it  is  possible  that  Ewald's  list  of  Davidic  psalms 
is  too  large,  but  it  is  not  clear  that  none  of  the  psalms 
contained  in  it  are  of  David's  composition." " 

Who,  then,  did  write  these  precious  hymns  of  the 
ages?  We  can  only  answer.  Many  devout  souls  of 
ancient  Israel,  living  all  the  way  along,  possibly  from 
David's  time  (Professor  Toy  says  from  Hezekiah's,  700 
B.C.)  down  to  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  a  century  and 
a  half  before  the  Christian  era. 

The  Book  of  Proverbs. — This  work,  besides  being 
poetical,  belongs  to  that  class  of  writings  (already  men- 
tioned) which  rose  to  considerable  importance  among  the 
Hebrews,  known  as  "Wisdom  Books."  We  are  apt  to 
think  of  the  moral  and  religious  life  of  Israel  as  wholly 
molded  by  the  prophets  and  the  priests.  But  this  is  a 
mistake.  As  early  as  the  times  of  David  and  Solomon 
there  arose,  side  by  side  with  the  priests  and  prophets,  a 
third  class  of  men  known  as  "  sages,"  who  exerted  con- 
siderable influence,  and  in  the  later  centuries,  after  the 


'  The  titles  ascribe  seventy-three  to  him. 

'  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,"  p.  358. 


114  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE. 

return  from  the  Captivity,  a  very  profound  influence,  upon 
the  thought  of  the  people.  From  this  class  of  men  came 
three  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  ;  namely,  Job, 
Proverbs,  and  Ecclesiastes,  and  also  two  valuable  works 
(Ecclesiasticus,  or  the  Wisdom  of  the  Son  of  Sirach,  and 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon)  which  may  be  found  in  the 
Old  Testament  Apocrypha,  but  which  never  gained  ad- 
mission to  the  Hebrew  canon.  While  the  prophets  were 
preachers  and  statesmen,  and  while  the  priests  were  reg- 
ulators and  conductors  of  public  worship,  the  sages  were 
thinkers,  philosophers,  men  who  concerned  themselves 
with  the  problems,  theoretical  and  practical,  w^hich  for- 
ever thrust  themselves  upon  man's  thought.  Some  of 
these  sages  were  not  men  of  very  distinctly  religious 
thinking,  but  employed  themselves  in  making  shrewd 
observations  on  men  and  things — wise  sayings,  proverbs, 
as  illustrated  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs — while  others  dealt 
with  the  profoundest  themes  of  religion,  as  seen  in  the 
Book  of  Job. 

The  Book  of  Proverbs  is  not  the  work  of  any  single 
one  of  these  sages,  but  represents  the  labors  of  many. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  thought  of  as  a  sort  of  thesaurus  of 
the  proverb  literature  of  Israel  for  many  centuries. 

Scholars  recognize  in  the  book  at  least  seven  distinct 
divisions,  for  the  most  part  marked  by  separate  titles  or 
introductions.  The  most  important  of  these  are  chapters 
i.  8  to  ix.  1 8,  which  consist,  not  of  detached  proverbs, 
but  of  connected  discourses  in  praise  of  wisdom  ;  chapters 
X.  I  to  xxii.  i6,  which  consist  of  three  hundred  and 
seventy-four  verses,  each  of  which  contains  a  single  prov- 
erb or  maxim  in  two  antithetical  lines  (as  ''  A  wise  son 
maketh  a  glad  father,  but  a  foolish  son  is  the  heaviness 
of  his  mother");  and  chapters  xxv.  to  xxix.,  made  up  of 


HEBREW  POETRY.  II5 

detached  and  simple  proverbs,  perhaps  the  oldest  in  the 
book. 

As  to  the  claim  made  in  the  first  verse  of  the  first 
chapter,  that  these  proverbs  are  from  Solomon,  a  word 
should  be  said.  A  conservative  scholar  shall  speak  it. 
Says  Prof.  A.  B.  Davidson  :  "■  A  number  of  them  (the 
proverbs)  may  well  be  by  Solomon,  and  a  greater  number 
may  belong  to  his  age;  but,  though  the  stream  of  wisdom 
began  to  flow  in  his  day,  its  beginnings  were  then  com- 
paratively small ;  as  the  centuries  advanced  it  gathered 
volume.  In  the  book  which  now  exists  we  find  gathered 
together  the  most  precious  fruits  of  the  wisdom  in  Israel 
during  many  hundred  years,  and  undoubtedly  the  later 
centuries  were  richer,  or  at  all  events  fuller,  in  their  con- 
tributions than  the  earlier,"  ^  Doubtless  it  was  the  same 
impulse  in  the  Hebrew  people  which  led  them  to  ascribe 
their  proverbs  generally  to  Solomon  as  that  which  caused 
them  to  think  of  David  as  their  chief  psalmist.' 

What  shall  we  say  about  dates  ?  Delitzsch  thinks  the 
oldest  collection  (chaps,  x.  i  to  xxii.  16)  was  made  about 
the  year  900  B.C.  Ewald  puts  it  a  hundred  years 
later.  Other  collections  were  made  at  widely  different 
dates,  probably  some  as  late  as  post-exilic  times,  or 
even  the  Greek  period.  The  final  gathering  together  of 
all  into  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  as  we  now  have  it,  can 
hardly  have  been  effected  earlier  than  the  second  century 
B.C. 

The  Book  of  Ecclesiastes. — This  book  is  poor  poetry, 

'  Ency.  Brit.,  art.  "  Proverbs." 

^  It  seems  to  have  been  the  same  impulse  among  other  peoples  that 
caused  the  Greeks  to  ascribe  most  of  their  sententious  maxims  to  Pythagoras, 
the  Arabs  theirs  to  Lokman  and  a  few  others,  and  the  Scandinavian  nations 
theirs  to  Odin. 


Il6  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE   BIBLE, 

as  it  is  also  poor  religion.  It  belongs  to  the  **  Wisdom 
Books,"  but  its  philosophy  is  that  of  pessimism.  The 
writer  has  sought  in  all  directions  for  happiness,  but  it  is 
not  to  be  found.  He  has  tried  riches,  fame,  knowledge, 
the  gratification  of  all  his  desires,  but  it  is  vanity — there 
is  nothing  anywhere  but  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 
Everything  passes  away  ;  man  himself  passes  away  ;  there 
is  no  hereafter  for  man.  The  only  redeeming  feature 
about  the  book  is  that  the  jaded  and  despairing  author 
would  have  men  avoid  excess,  and  keep  the  fear  of  God 
before  their  eyes.  It  is  one  of  the  unaccountable  things 
about  the  Bible,  that  men  could  ever  have  received  this 
book  into  the  canon  as  the  inspired  word  of  God,  and  at 
the  same  time  have  kept  out  a  book  like  the  apocry- 
phal '*  Wisdom  of  Solomon,"  with  its  broad  and  catholic 
spirit  and  its  high  views  of  God  and  life  and  immor- 
tality. 

The  author  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  unknown. 
The  claim  that  the  work  is  from  Solomon  has  nothing 
whatever  to  support  it.  It  was  probably  written  in  the 
second  or  third  century  before  Christ.' 

The  Song  of  Solomon. — If  the  Higher  Criticism  had 
done  nothing  else  than  to  give  us,  as  it  has  done,  a 
reasonable  interpretation  of  this  poem,  our  obligation  to 
it  would  be  great.  No  other  book  of  the  Bible  has  been 
so  misunderstood,  so  travestied.  On  the  one  hand  it  has 
been  declared  to  be  an  erotic  poem,  breathing  throughout 
an  impure  and  lustful  spirit,  and  hence  unfit  to  be  read. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have  been  told  that  it  is  a  divine 


'  Ewald,  Delitzscb.  and  Cheyne  fix  its  date  at  not  earlier  than  the  last  years 
of  the  Persian  rule,  which  ended  332  B.C.  ;  and  Noldeke,  Hitzig,  Kuenen, 
Driver,  and  Toy  at  about  200  B.C. 


HEBREW  POETRY.  11/ 

allegory,  setting  forth  the  love  of  Christ  for  his  Church, 
and  that  every  sensuous  image  in  it  is  a  symbol  of  some- 
thing spiritual.  Thus,  turning  to  the  English  Bible  that 
lies  on  my  table,  I  find  such  headings  of  chapters  as  these : 
"  The  Church's  love  unto  Christ  "  ;  **  Christ's  love  to  the 
Church  "  ;  "  The  Church  glorieth  in  Christ  "  ;  "A  descrip- 
tion of  Christ  by  his  graces  "  ;  ''  Christ  setteth  forth  the 
graces  of  the  Church " ;  "  Christ  directeth  her  to  the 
shepherd's  tents,  and  showeth  his  love  to  her."  The 
Higher  Criticism  tells  us  that  both  these  interpretations 
are  without  justification.  The  poem  is  not  impure  in 
spirit  or  intent,  though  its  imagery  transcends  the  limits 
of  propriety  according  to  our  canons  of  literary  expres- 
sion. On  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  justi- 
fication for  turning  it  into  an  allegory  ;  it  has  no  more 
reference  to  Christ  and  his  Church  than  to  Adam  and 
Eve,  or  to  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  The  book  is  not 
religious,  and  one  looks  in  vain  for  any  justification  for 
its  having  a  place  in  a  sacred  book.  But  it  is  not  im- 
moral. It  is  a  little  love-drama — a  simple  story,  in  dra- 
matic verse,  of  an  ardent  but  pure  love,  that  refuses  all 
blandishments,  and   remains  true   to   its  object.  *     As  a 

^  Professor  Driver  thus  outlines  the  plot  of  the  drama  :  "A  beautiful 
Shulamite  maiden,  surprised  by  the  king  and  his  train  on  a  royal  progress 
in  the  north,  has  been  brought  to  the  palace  at  Jerusalem,  where  the  king 
hopes  to  win  her  affections,  and  to  induce  her  to  exchange  her  rustic  home 
for  the  honor  and  enjoyments  which  a  court  life  could  afford.  She  has, 
however,  already  pledged  her  heart  to  a  young  shepherd,  and  the  admiration 
and  blandishments  which  the  king  lavishes  upon  her  are  powerless  to  make 
her  forget  him.  In  the  end  she  is  permitted  to  return  to  her  mountain 
home,  where,  at  the  close  of  the  poem,  the  lovers  appear  hand  in  hand,  and 
express,  in  warm  and  glowing  words,  the  superiority  of  genuine,  spon- 
taneous affection  over  that  which  may  be  purchased  by  wealth  or  rank  ** 
(Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  pp.  410-411). 


Il8  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

poem  it  is  exquisite.  Its  imagery  of  nature,  and  its 
pictures  of  country  life,  are  among  the  most  beautiful  in 
literature.  The  old  view  that  it  was  written  by  Solomon 
is  now  almost  wholly  abandoned.  Its  date  is  probably 
300-200  B.C. 

It  would  be  quite  unfair  to  the  poetry  of  the  Bible  if  we 
failed  to  point  out  how  much  it  has  sufifered  at  the  hands 
of  translators,  editors,  and  printers  in  not  being  given  to 
English  readers  in  proper  literary  form.  The  "  Authorized 
Version  "  and  most  other  English  Bibles  of  the  past  have 
printed  all  the  poetry  of  whatever  kind  —  all  the  poetical 
books,  and  all  the  poetical  fragments  in  other  books  —  as 
prose.  Could  greater  literary  injustice  be  done  to  any 
writings?  Think  of  printing  Tennyson's  ''  Idyls  of  the 
King,"  Milton's  "  Samson,"  Burns'  love  songs,  and  Wesley's 
hymns,  as  prose  !  That  would  not  be  worse  than  printing 
"Job,"  "  Canticles"  and  the  '*  Psalms  "  as  prose.  Happily, 
at  last  the  Bible  is  beginning  to  receive  treatment  that  is  a 
little  more  civilized.  In  the  "  Revised  Version  "  all  poetry 
is  printed  under  the  literary  forms  of  poetry.  The  same  is 
true  of  all  other  recent  revisions  and  translations  of  any 
value.  The  result  will  be  a  great  new  appreciation  of  the 
beauty  and  worth  of  the  poetry  of  the  Bible  in  all  its  forms. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE   GOSPELS:    THEIR   ORIGIN  AND   CHARACTER.— I. 

Having  completed  our  study  of  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  we  pass  now  to  those  of  the  New. 

What  is  the  New  Testament  ? — A  little  examination 
shows  us  that  it  easily  and  naturally  divides  into  two 
pretty  nearly  equal  parts.  The  first  is  made  up  of  the 
four  Gospels  ;  the  second  of  the  books  (twenty-three  in 
number)  that  follow  the  Gospels.  In  other  words,  the 
first  part  gives  us  the  literature  of  the  life  and  teachings 
of  Jesus ;  and  the  second,  the  literature  of  the  disciples 
and  followers  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  planting  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church. 

In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  deal  with  the  first  three 
Gospels — Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke — asking  about  them 
the  same  questions  that  have  been  asked  about  the  Old 
Testament  books :  Who  wrote  them  ?  When  were  they 
written  ?     What  are  they  } 

It  is  a  very  common  impression  in  men's  minds,  that 
the  Gospels  were  the  earliest  composed  of  the  New 
Testament  books.  Both  the  fact  that  they  stand  first  in 
order  in  our  canon,  and  also  the  fact  that  they  treat  of 
Jesus,  who  was  the  beginning  of  the  New  Testament 
movement,  would  seem  to  favor  that  impression.  Never- 
theless, the  impression  is  untrue.  The  earliest  written 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  we  shall  see  in  another 
chapter,  were  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 

The   First   Gospel   Story   Oral,    not  Written.— For 


I20  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

nearly  or  quite  a  generation,  knowledge  of  the  life  and 
teachings  of  Jesus  was  spread  abroad  solely  by  the  lips 
of  men — first  of  disciples,  and  then  of  those  who  had 
received  the  story  from  disciples — before  it  was  com- 
mitted to  the  written  page.  Thus  our  Gospel  records 
rest  upon  a  background  of  tradition.  At  the  outset  of 
every  study  of  the  New  Testament  it  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  that  this  be  clearly  understood. 

Jesus  himself  wrote  nothing.  Nor  is  it  strange  that  so 
long  as  he  was  living  no  one  else  should  have  thought 
to  write  an  account  of  his  words  and  deeds.  When  his 
followers  after  his  death  began  to  go  about  telling  his 
story,  and  preaching  his  gospel,  everything  was  fresh  in 
their  memory  ;  hence,  what  need  was  there  yet  for  writ- 
ten records?  Moreover,  they  expected  him  soon  to 
return ;  and  when  they  had  hiniy  what  would  they  care 
for  writings  about  him  ? 

How  and  why  Written  Records  began  to  be 
made. — But  time  passed  on,  and  Jesus  did  not  return ; 
moreover,  the  recollections,  at  first  so  distinct  and  vivid, 
tended  to  grow  dim  as  the  years  multiplied  ;  and,  most 
serious  of  all,  one  and  another  of  those  who  had  known 
him  best  began  to  be  taken  away  by  death.  Then  arose 
a  feeling  of  need  for  written  memorials. 

But  who  should  write  them?  Jesus  had  commissioned 
no  one  to  do  it.  Who  should  assume  the  responsibil- 
ity ?  And  if  they  wrote,  in  what  form  should  it  be  ? 
Meanwhile,  oral  traditions,  more  or  less  definite,  were 
springing  up,  based  upon  the  preaching  of  the  different 
apostles  ;  and,  side  by  side  with  these,  as  was  inevitable, 
fictitious  stQries,  exaggerations,  legends,  seeking  for  in- 
corporation with  the  traditions. 

Such  was  the  general  condition  of  things  out  of  which, 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER,     121 

possibly  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  after  the  death  of 
Jesus,  there  began,  in  some  way  and  by  some  hands,  the 
work  of  writing  out  memorials  of  the  great  life  and  the 
great  teachings. 

We  must  not  suppose,  however,  that  those  first  me- 
morials were  our  present  Gospels.  The  biblical  scholar- 
ship of  our  century  has  settled  it  beyond  a  question  that 
at  least  three  of  our  Gospels — namely,  the  synoptics  : 
Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  —  are  compilations,  which 
reached  their  present  form  only  after  several  redac- 
tions.' 

Have  we  any  trace  of  those  earlier  memorials  or  docu- 
ments which  lie  back  of  these  Gospels  ?  Yes  ;  at  least  a 
few. 

The  Earliest  Documents. — It  happens  that  many 
works  of  Christian  writers  of  the  first  two  or  three  cen- 
turies have  been  preserved  to  our  day.  Through  those 
early  writings  we  get  traces  of  a  number  of  Gospels  or 
fragments  of  Gospels,  and  other  documents,  longer  or 
shorter,  which  were  early  in  circulation  among  the 
churches — all  of  them  purporting  to  give  information 
about  Jesus.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  name  some  of 
these.     Perhaps  the  most  important  are  the  following: 

I.  A  collection  of  Sayings  of  the  Lord,  ascribed  to 
Matthew ;  not  the  same  as  our  Gospel  of  Matthew,  but 
probably  later  embodied  in  Matthew's  Gospel. 


^  It  should  be  noted  that  the  titles  of  our  Gospels  are  not  '*  The  Gospel 
of  Matthew,"  "of  Mark,"  etc.,  but  "  The  Gospel  according  to''  Matthew, 
Mark,  and  the  others.  This  is  significant.  It  would  seem  to  intimate  that 
the  Gospels  do  not  intend  to  claim  for  themselves  the  actual  authorship  of 
these  men,  but  only  a  general  conformity  of  their  contents  to  some  docu- 
ment or  well-known  oral  tradition  coming  from  them.  See  **  Protestant 
Commentary  on  the  New  Testament,"  vol.  i.,  p.  34. 


122  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

2.  A  collection  of  rather  miscellaneous  Memorabilia  of 
Events  in  the  Life  of  fesus,  said  to  have  been  taken  down 
from  the  preaching  of  Peter ^  by  Mark  ;  evidently  shorter 
and  less  orderly  than  our  Gospel  of  Mark,  but  probably 
forming  the  basis  of  this  Gospel. 

3.  A  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  which  seems  to 
have  been  used  extensively  in  the  first  and  second  cen- 
turies by  the  Ebionites,  or  Jewish  Christians  of  Palestine. 
It  is  sometimes  referred  to  as  the  Gospel  of  the  EbioniteSy 
or  of  the  Nazarenes.  Extensive  fragments  of  it  have  been 
preserved  in  the  writings  of  St.  Jerome. 

4.  A  Gospel  of  the  Egyptians,  which  seems  to  have  had 
an  extensive  circulation  in  Egypt.  It  seems  to  have 
been  much  tinctured  with  Philonism. 

5.  A  Gospel  of  the  Lord,  so-called ;  also  sometimes 
designated  as  Marcions  Gospel,  because  it  was  the  Gospel 
used  by  the  heretic  Marcion  and  his  sect  in  the  second 
century.  It  seems  to  have  had  much  in  common  with 
our  Gospel  of  Luke. 

Thus  we  see  that  our  present  New  Testament  Gospels 
are  not  the  only,  or  even  the  earliest,  accounts  that  were 
written  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus. 

Nor  is  this  all.  By  the  discovery  of  these  primitive 
Gospel  documents  we  are  able  to  take  what  seems  to  be  a 
sure  step  toward  an  analysis  of  at  least  two  of  our  pres- 
ent Gospels  into  their  original  component  elements.  How 
much  influence  the  ancient  Gospels  of  the  Hebrews,  the 
Egyptians,  and  of  Marcion  may  have  had  upon  our  syn- 
optics we  cannot  tell — possibly  not  much  ;  but  that  the 
Sayings  (or  the  Logia)  of  Matthew,  and  the  Memorabilia 
of  Mark  are  the  most  important  documents  entering  into 
the  formation  of  our  present  Matthew  and  Mark,  is  the 
widespread   and  growing  judgment  of   New  Testament 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER,     1 23 

scholarship.  Indeed,  it  is  believed  that  our  first  two 
Gospels  take  their  names  from  these  two  documents.* 

The  Composition  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels. — We  may, 
with  considerable  probability,  regard  the  three  Synoptics 
as  made  up  as  follows  : 

The  First  Gospel^  Matthew^  has  the  Logia,  or  the  Col- 
lection of  the  Sayings  of  Jesus  made  by  St.  Matthew,  as 
its  basis ;  hence  the  fact  that  it  so  much  surpasses  the 
other  Gospels  in  the  number  of  the  sayings  of  the  Master 
which  it  contains.  To  this  basis  document  is  added,  as 
second  in  importance,  a  framework  of  biographical  nar- 
rative borrowed  from  the  Mark  document.  Later,  other 
elements  also  are  added,  partly  from  current  tradition, 
and  very  likely  partly  from  written  documents  now  lost. 

The  Second  Gospel,  Mark,  has  as  its  basis  the  Mark 
document — the  Memorabilia  of  Events  in  the  Life  of 
Jesus,  gathered  by  Mark  from  the  preaching  of  Peter. 
But  to  this  there  are  added  many  sayings  of  Jesus,  taken, 
seemingly,  from  the  Matthew  document,  and  also  matter 
from  sources  which  to  us  are  unknown. 

The  Third  Gospel,  Luke,  we  cannot  speak  of  with  quite 
so  much  certainty.  That  it  is  a  compilation  by  one  who 
had  before  him  various  written  documents  is  indicated  in 
its  opening  verses.  What  were  those  documents?  We 
can  only  say  that  they  must  have  included  some  of  the 
most  important  original  sources  of  both   Matthew  and 

^  The  so-called  "  Gospel  of  Peter,"  a  fragment  of  which,  in  Greek,  ha« 
recently  been  brought  to  light,  does  not  date  earlier  than  some  distance 
on  in  the  second  century,  and  hence  belongs  properly  with  the  "Apocryphai 
Gospels"  mentioned  in  a  later  chapter  of  this  book.  It  seems  to  throw 
some  little  side  light,  possibly,  upon  two  or  three  questions  connected  with 
the  origin  and  dates  of  our  canonical  Gospels.  As  yet,  however,  this  is  un- 
certain ;  and,  in  any  event,  the  fragment  discovered  is  not  of  great  import* 
ance. 


i24  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

Mark,  else  there  seems  to  be  no  way  of  accounting  for 
the  remarkable  similarities  running  through  all  three 
Gospels. 

The  Oldest  Gospel. — The  question  is  of  prime  im- 
portance, Which  of  our  Gospels  is  the  oldest  ?  Many 
scholars  of  very  high  standing  hold  to  the  view,  generally 
entertained  by  the  Church  in  the  past,  that  the  priority 
must  be  assigned  to  Matthew.^  This  view,  however,  can 
no  longer  claim  the  best  support.  As  far  back  as  the 
1 8th  century.  Herder,  in  Germany,  put  forth  the  theory  of 
the  priority  of  Mark.  The  great  influence  of  Schleier- 
macher,  who  held  the  opposite  opinion,  crowded  Herder's, 
for  a  time,  out  of  sight,  and  not  until  it  was  revived  and 
set  forth  anew  by  Hermann  Weisse,  in  1838,  did  it  attract 
the  general  attention  of  New  Testament  scholars.  Since 
Weisse,  however,  it  has  been  steadily  gaining  ground,  and 
to-day  may  be  said  to  have  decidedly  the  weight  of 
scholarship  in  its  favor.  Besides  Herder  and  Weisse,  I 
may  name  as  its  advocates  on  the  continent  of  Europe, 
Wilke,  Schenkel,  Volkmar,  Weizsacker,  Pfleiderer,  Bern- 
hard  Weiss,  and  Holtzmann.  It  is  also  supported  in  this 
country  and  England  by  such  scholars  as  Martineau,  in 
his  *'  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion  " ;  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott, 
in  his  able  article  on  the  Gospels  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica ;  Prof.  Estlin  Carpenter,  in  his  "  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels," and  Dr.  Cone,  in  his  *'  Gospel-Criticism."  In  com- 
pany with  such  authorities  we  need  not  shrink  from  the 
judgment  that  Mark  is  probably  our  oldest  Gospel. 

As  to  the  Gospel  next  in  age,  the  weight  of  authority 
is  probably  in  favor  of  Matthew,  with  Luke  following  as 

^  Among  them,    such   names   as   F.   C.  Baur,    Hilgenfeld,    Keim,   and 
Davidson. 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER.     125 

third  ;  though  Pfleiderer  and  Carpenter  and  other  writers 
of  first  rank  put  Luke  second  and  Matthew  third.  But 
the  question  is  by  no  means  so  important  whether  Mat- 
thew or  Luke  is  second,  as  the  question,  Is  Mark  first  ? 

Mark's  Priority  Significant. — If  Mark  is  our  oldest 
Gospel,  it  throws  great  new  light  upon  the  whole  de- 
velopment of  New  Testament  thought.  For  Mark  is 
unquestionably  the  simplest  Gospel,  the  one  that  repre- 
sents Jesus  as  the  most  distinctly  and  simply  human,  and 
enunciates  his  message  in  the  most  easily  understood 
form.  While  Matthew  begins  with  a  long  and  impossible 
genealogical  table,  and  a  whole  cycle  of  miraculous  birth- 
stories;  while  Luke  devotes  the  most  of  its  first  two 
chapters  also  to  birth-stories  filled  with  supernatural  mar- 
vels ;  and  while  John  begins  its  story  in  heaven,  by  repre- 
senting the  Eternal  Word  as  becoming  incarnate  and 
descending  to  earth,  Mark  begins  with  the  simple  and 
plain  words,  "  The  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ."  *  Mark  also  omits  those  stories  of  the  reappear- 
ance of  Jesus  after  his  resurrection  which  have  most  the 
appearance  of  legend.  So,  too,  Mark's  Gospel  shows  a 
steady  growth  and  progress  in  Jesus'  mental  and  spiritual 
history.  While  Matthew  and  Luke  represent  the  idea  of 
his  Messiahship  as  clear  in  his  mind  from  the  beginning, 
Mark  gives  the  impression  that  it  grows  in  his  thought 
by  degrees,  the  first  clear  recognition  of  it  being  given  at 
Caesarea  Philippi,  after  his  ministry  was  far  advanced. 

It  is  this  greater  simplicity  of  Mark's  Gospel,  its  greater 
naturalness  in  portraying  Jesus,  its  comparative  freedom 
from  legendary  traces,  from  marks  of  elaboration,  and 


*  The  words  "the  Son  of  God"  are  doubtful,  being  omitted  by  some 
ancient  manuscripts. 


126  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

from  expressions  and  allusions  of  various  kinds  betraying 
long  intervals  of  time  and  later  dates,  that  is  causing  the 
leading  scholars  of  the  world  more  and  more  to  accept 
the  view  that  this  Gospel  is  the  oldest. 

Dates  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels. — What  dates  must  we 
assign  to  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  ? 

There  has  undoubtedly  been  a  tendency,  within  the 
past  twenty  years,  away  from  the  extremely  late  dates 
advocated  by  the  early  Tubingen  critics.  One  of  the 
hopeful  signs  of  the  times  in  biblical  criticism  is  the 
manifest  tendency  of  extreme  parties  to  draw  nearer  to 
each  other,  and  to  find  common  ground.  There  is  still 
much  difference  of  view  as  to  the  dates  of  the  Gospels, 
but  the  best  authorities  now  pretty  generally  agree  at 
least  in  this:  that  one  of  the  synoptics,  and  that  one 
either  Mark  or  Matthew,  must  have  been  written  as  early 
as  about  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  which  occurred  in 
the  year  70  A.D. ;  and  that  the  other  two  synoptics  were 
probably  produced  within  the  next  twenty  or  thirty  years. 
So,  then,  if  we  accept  Mark  as  written  first,  and  Matthew 
second,  we  shall  have  the  date  of  Mark  falling  between  70 
and  75  ;  that  of  Matthew  somewhere  between  75  and  90 ; 
and  Luke  between  85  and  100. 

It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  these  dates  refer 
to  the  final  compilation  of  each  Gospel,  the  time  when  it 
was  put  in  essentially  the  form  in  which  it  comes  down 
to  us,  and  not  the  time  of  origin  of  any  of  the  subordi- 
nate documents.  Both  the  Logia,  or  Collection  of  Say- 
ings of  Matthew,  and  the  Mark  document,  undoubtedly 
go  back  a  few  years  further,  perhaps  to  the  year  60,  pos- 
sibly to  55 — that  is,  to  within  twenty-five  or  thirty  years 
of  the  death  of  Christ. 


BOOKS   OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT. 


Classified  According  to  their  Nature 
AND  Literary  Form. 


I.  Biography  (4  Books). 
Matthew. 
Mark. 
Luke. 

John  (Philosophical  Biography). 
II.  History  (i  Book). 

Acts. 
III.  Epistles  or  Letters  (20  Books). 
Romans. 

I  and  2  Corinthians. 
Galatians. 
Ephesians. 
Philippians. 
Colossians. 

I  and  2  Thessalonians. 
I  and  2  Timothy. 
Titus. 
Philemon. 
Hebrews. 
James. 

I  and  2  Peter. 
»,  2,  and  3  John. 
Jude. 
IV.  Apocalypse  (i  Book). 
Revelation. 


In  their  (Approximately)  true  Chrok- 

OLOGICAL      order,      ACCORDING      TO     THK 

Higher  Criticism. 

(See  Table  of  "Dates  of  Biblical  Litera- 
ture'' between  pp.  58  and  59.) 

1  Thessalonians. 

2  Thessalonians  (if  Paul's). 
Galatians. 

I  and  2  Corinthians. 

Romans. 

Philemon. 

Philippians. 

Gospel  of  Mark. 

Hebrews. 

Gospel  of  Matthew. 

I  Peter. 

James. 

Gospel  of  Luke. 

Acts. 

Colossians  (if  not  Paul's). 

Ephesians  (if  not  Paul's). 

1  and  2  Tinnothy. 
Titus. 

I,  2,  and  3  John. 

Gospel  of  John. 

Jude. 

Revelation  (final  form). 

2  Peter. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE  GOSPELS:  THEIR  ORIGIN  AND   CHARACTER. — II. 

The  Fourth  Gospel. — I  pass  now  from  the  synoptics 
to  the  fourth  Gospel,  known  as  the  Gospel  according  to 
John. 

We  have  seen  that  the  synoptics  are  compilations. 
The  fourth  Gospel  probably  is  not,  or,  at  least,  it  is  clear 
that  the  main  part  of  it  was  written  by  a  single  author. 
Who  was  that  author  ? 

We  reach  here  one  of  the  most  hotly  disputed  ques- 
tions in  New  Testament  criticism.  The  common  view 
held  by  the  Christian  Church  in  the  past  has  been  that 
the  writer  of  this  Gospel  was  John,  the  disciple  of  Jesus. 
To-day,  scholars  who  are  committed  to  orthodoxy  or 
evangelicalism  generally  hold  the  same  view,  though  all 
such  by  no  means  do  ;  there  are  some  very  eminent  ex- 
ceptions. Some  liberal  and  independent  scholars,  too, 
hold  it.  I  think,  however,  that  I  shall  be  within  the 
truth  if  I  say  that,  of  the  most  eminent  and  trustworthy 
authorities  in  New  Testament  criticism  within  recent 
time,  fully  one  half  reject  the  authorship  of  John.*  And 
it  is  plain  that  this  view  is  the  steadily  growing  one.* 

*  As  a  few  among  the  number,  I  may  name  F.  C.  Baur,  J.  J.  Tayler, 
Keim,  Holtzmann,  Scholten,  Pfleiderer,  Schiirer,  Davidson,  Martineau, 
Carpenter,  E.  A.  Abbott,  Cone,  B.  W.  Bacon. 

2  A  mediating  view,  however,  should  be  noticed.  In  addition  to,  and  in 
a  sense  mediating  between,  the  two  positions  named  above  (i,  that  which 
maintains  the  full  apostolic  authorship  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  and,  2,  that 


128  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

When  was  the  fourth  Gospel  written  ? 

The  answer  which  must  be  given  to  this  question  de- 
pends upon  what  we  decide  as  to  the  authorship.  If  we 
go  with  those  who  say  that  John  wrote  the  Gospel, 
then  we  must  hold  that  it  was  probably  written  a  little 
before  the  year  lOO — when  John  was  a  very  old  man — 
a  thing  which  seems  very  difficult  to  believe,  since  its 
characteristics  are  anything  but  those  betraying  senility. 
If  we  go  with  those  who  say  it  could  not  have  come  from 
John,  then  we  shall  find  ourselves  obliged  to  push  its 
date  on  into  the  second  century,  perhaps  to  the  first 
decade,  perhaps  much  farther  than  that. 

Contrasts  between  the  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel. — It  is  important  to  understand  the  very  marked 
and  significant  differences  and  even  contrasts  that  exist 
between  the  synoptics  and  the  fourth  Gospel.  These 
are  particularly  noticeable  as  regards  the  pictures  they 
paint  for  us  of  Jesus.  Probably  few  persons  who  have 
not  had  their  attention  called  specifically  to  the  subject 
realize  at  all  adequately  how  far  apart  are  the  Jesus  of 
John  and  the  Jesus  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke.  True, 
there  are  differences  in  the  representations  of  the  synop- 
tics. Each  synoptic  writer  has  his  own  standpoint,  and 
each  employs  his  own  emphasis  and  his  own  shading  in 
portraying  Christ.  Nevertheless,  in  the  records  of  all 
three  the  main  events  in  Christ's  life  and  the  leading 

which  wholly  denies  it),  there  is  a  thirds  which  finds  favor  with  some 
scholars  of  ability  and  candor — as  Wendt  in  Germany  and  Cone  in  America. 
This  view  is  that  the  fourth  Gospel  as  it  comes  to  us  is  the  production  not 
of  John  but  of  a  post-apostolic  writer  ;  but  that  this  writer  possessed  and 
embodied  in  his  Gospel  a  genuine  Johannine  writing,  which  bears  essentially 
the  same  relation  to  the  completed  fourth  Gospel  that  the  Login  of  Mat- 
thew does  to  the  completed  synoptic  Gospels.  There  is  considerable  to  be 
said  in  favor  of  this  view. 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER.     1 29 

elements  of  his  character  are  the  same.  Not  so  when  we 
pass  over  into  the  fourth  Gospel.  Here  nearly  every- 
thing is  different.  The  synoptics  represent  Christ's  pub- 
lic ministry  as  only  one  year  in  length  ;  the  fourth  Gospel 
as  three  years.  According  to  the  synoptics,  his  ministry 
was  carried  on  almost  wholly  in  Galilee,  and  only  once 
did  he  visit  Jerusalem,  and  that  was  near  the  close  of  his 
life.  According  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  he  visited  Jerusalem 
repeatedly,  and  a  large  part  of  his  ministry  was  carried 
on  in  Judea.  In  the  synoptics  his  human  birth  is  given. 
In  the  fourth  he  is  the  pre-existent  Logos  or  Word — 
co-existent  with  God — and  as  such  descended  to  earth, 
and  manifest  in  human  form.  In  the  synoptic  Gospels 
Jesus  is  a  man ;  he  eats,  sleeps,  hungers,  thirsts,  grows 
weary,  is  tempted,  grows  in  knowledge,  shrinks  from 
pain,  is  disappointed,  prays,  even  loses  temporarily  his 
vision  of  God,  is  limited  in  knowledge  and  power — goes 
through  the  world  ever  as  a  man  among  men.  True,  he 
is  represented  as  having  had  a  miraculous  birth.  But 
men  in  that  age  thought  Plato  and  Alexander  and 
Augustus  Caesar  miraculously  born.  He  is  represented 
as  working  miracles.  But  miracle-working  was  regarded 
as  common.  He  is  represented  as  rising  from  the  dead. 
But  so  had  Samuel  and  Moses  and  Elijah  risen  from  the 
dead,  and  they  were  only  men. 

But  when  we  pass  on  to  the  fourth  Gospel  we  are  in  a 
wholly  different  atmosphere.  Jesus  is  no  longer  a  man. 
He  descends  into  the  world  from  above,  a  mysterious 
being,  not  quite  God,  but  much  more  than  man  ;  and  he 
walks  through  the  world  as  a  being  from  another  sphere. 
His  whole  manner  of  teaching  is  different.  In  the  synop- 
tic Gospels  he  everywhere  teaches  in  parables,  and  in 
brief  and  concise  sentences.     In  the  fourth  Gospel  there 


130  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

is  not  a  parable  ;  and  in  place  of  the  crystal-clear  short 
sentences,  each  so  brief  and  sharp  and  fresh  and  full  of 
meaning  that  nobody  can  ever  forget  them,  he  every- 
where speaks  in  long  sentences,  and  elaborate,  mystical, 
metaphysical  discourses. 

In  short,  the  whole  fourth  Gospel  shows  that  it  was 
composed  with  a  doctrinal  purpose  in  view.  It  is  not  a 
mere  narrative,  written  without  bias,  to  tell  simply  what 
Jesus  did  and  said.  It  is  a  plea,  an  argument,  a  docu- 
ment written  to  show  that  Jesus  was  the  Incarnate  Word 
of  God. 

This  great  difference  between  the  fourth  Gospel  and 
the  others  is  one  of  the  strong  reasons  why  so  many 
unbiased  scholars  find  it  impossible  to  believe  that  it 
could  have  been  written  by  an  apostle,  and  are  so  gener- 
ally disposed  to  regard  it  as  the  production  of  a  later  age, 
when  the  simple  humanity  of  Jesus  had  become  exalted 
into  something  superhuman.  Indeed,  one  of  the  most 
important  achievements  of  biblical  criticism  is  that  of  the 
discovery  of  the  order,  approximate  dates,  and  relations 
to  each  other  of  the  Gospels  and  other  writings  of  the 
New  Testament,  by  means  of  which  we  are  able  to  trace 
the  changing  conception  of  Jesus  from  its  simplest  form 
in  Mark  through  the  successive  elaborations  and  exalta- 
tions that  it  takes  on,  to  some  extent  in  Matthew  and 
Luke,  but  more  still  in  the  Epistles,  to  its  climax  in  the 
fourth  Gospel.  True,  it  has  not  yet  reached  the  height 
of  deity;  the  journey  of  Jesus  from  man  to  God  does 
not  end  until  the  Council  of  Nicea  in  the  year  325  ;  but 
by  the  time  the  fourth  Gospel  is  written  it  is  far  ad- 
vanced. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  understood  that  this  view  of 
the  origin  of  the  fourth  Gospel  casts  aside  the  Gospel  as 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER,     I3I 

of  little  value.  Far  from  that.  It  simply  changes  its 
value,  making  that  value  primarily  ethical  and  spiritual 
instead  of  historical.  While  it  holds  that  the  facts  of 
Jesus'  life  are  so  idealized  in  these  pages  as  to  lose  much 
of  their  reliability  as  history,  it  recognizes  here  a  deeper 
and  richer  appreciation  of  the  spirit  of  his  life  and  teach- 
ings than  perhaps  in  either  of  the  synoptics,  or  probably, 
indeed,  than  in  any  other  New  Testament  book. 

A  Legendary  Element  in  the  Gospels. — In  the  light 
of  the  scholarship  of  our  time,  it  has  to  be  confessed  that 
there  is  a  legendary  element  in  the  Gospels,  just  as  we 
have  found  that  there  are  legends  in  various  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Not  a  few  of  the  Gospel  miracle-stories 
are  undoubtedly  legends.  For  example,  that  exception- 
ally interesting  group  of  wonder-stories  which  gathers 
about  the  birth  of  Jesus,  as  similar  tales  have  gathered 
around  the  birth  of  so  many  other  great  characters  of 
history.  Indeed,  these  birth-stories  of  our  Evangelists 
are  almost  precisely  the  same  as  those  that  we  find 
in  Buddhistic  literature  haloing  the  birth  of  Gautama. 

An  interesting  thing  about  our  Gospel  birth-stories 
is  that  we  are  able  to  detect  them  in  the  very  process, 
as  it  were,  of  their  legendary  growth  ;  and  by  this  means 
we  get  proof  that,  instead  of  being  a  part  of  the  real 
events  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  they  almost  certainly  attached 
themselves  to  the  GospeLrecords  late,  at  a  time  which 
we  can  approximately  fix.  To  see  this  we  have  only  to 
open  our  Bibles.  Turning  to  the  beginning  of  Mark, 
our  earliest  Gospel,  we  find  not  one  of  these  birth-stories 
of  Jesus  there.  Passing  on  to  the  later  records,  Matthew 
and  Luke,  we  find  them  all.  The  inference  seems  inevit- 
able that  when  Mark's  Gospel  was  written  they  were  not 
yet  in  existence ;  but  by  the  time  the  two  later  Gospels 


132  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

are  compiled  they  have  come  into  being  and  have  found 
general  credence,  as  such  wonder-stories  easily  do,  and 
hence  the  editors  of  these  two  Gospels  incorporate  them 
into  their  narratives. 

This  well  illustrates  the  growth  of  legends  everywhere, 
and  the  thing  to  be  borne  particularly  in  mind  is  that 
everywhere,  whether  inside  our  Bible  or  outside,  they  go 
hand  in  hand  with  miracle.  Stories  of  miracles  may  not 
always  be  legendary,  but  legends  nearly  or  quite  always 
take  the  form  of  the  miraculous.  Hence,  just  as  in  read- 
ing Buddhist  or  early  Greek  and  Roman  history,  when  we 
find  miraculous  stories,  we  at  once  set  them  down  as 
legends,  as  historical  criticism  has  taught  us  to  do  ;  so,  in 
studying  the  Bible,  New  Testament  or  Old,  when  we  find 
accounts  of  miraculous  events,  a  sound  biblical  criticism 
teaches  us  always  to  ask  the  question,  and  with  great 
thoroughness  and  care.  Are  they  not  legendary  ?  It  has 
come  to  be  an  axiom  of  historical  criticism  that  the 
presence  of  a  miraculous  element  in  any  story  or  record, 
while  it  may  not  condemn  the  story  or  the  record,  at 
least  casts  suspicion  upon  it.  A  narrative  thus  on  its 
face  open  to  suspicion  can  be  accepted  as  historic  only 
after  the  fullest  investigation  and  upon  the  strongest 
evidence. 

We  may  hesitate  to  confess  the  presence  of  a  legend- 
ary element  in  the  Gospels  for  fear  it  may  impair  their 
credibility,  and  hence  weaken  the  foundations  of  faith 
in  Christ.  But  such  a  position  is  unworthy  of  an  honest 
investigator  of  truth.  Indeed,  to  take  it  is  virtually  to 
confess  that  truth  may  not  be  safe.  Says  Dr.  Frederick 
H.  Hedge  : 

"  Every  historic  religion  that  has  won  for  itself  a  place 
in  the  world's  history  has  evolved  from  a  core  of  fact  a 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER.     133 

nimbus  of  legendary  matter  which  criticism  cannot 
always  separate,  and  which  the  popular  faith  does  not 
seek  to  separate.  .  .  .  Christianity,  like  every  other 
religion,  has  its  mythology, — a  mythology  so  intertwined 
with  the  veritable  facts  of  its  early  history,  so  braided 
and  welded  with  its  first  beginnings,  that  history  and 
myth  are  not  always  distinguishable  the  one  from  the 
other.  .  .  .  Yet  the  mythical  interpretation  of  cer- 
tain portions  of  the  Gospels  has  no  appreciable  bearing 
on  the  character  of  Christ.  The  impartial  reader  of  the 
record  must  see  that  the  evangelists  did  not  invent  that 
character;  they  did  not  make  the  Jesus  of  their  story; 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  he  that  made  them.  It  is  a  true 
saying  that  only  a  Christ  could  invent  a  Christ." ' 

The  Reliability  of  the  Gospel  Records. — The  verdict 
of  competent  scholarship  is  unequivocal  and  unanimous 
that  these  Gospel  records  are  human,  and,  as  human,  con- 
tain human  imperfections.  They  display  no  omniscience 
on  the  part  of  their  writers  or  their  compilers  ;  how,  then, 
can  they  be  free  from  errors?  And  yet,  while  scholar- 
ship denies  their  inerrancy,  just  as  emphatically  it  affirms 
their  worth,  their  honesty,  their  general  credibility.  Many 
lines  of  evidence  converge  to  establish  these.  Gibbon  and 
Bancroft  may  be  in  error,  not  infrequently  are  in  error,  as 
to  individual  statements  of  fact  in  their  histories  ;  but  as 
to  the  general  story  of  the  fall  of  Rome  and  that  of  the 
American  Revolution,  as  set  forth  by  them,  there  is  no 
room  for  question.  So,  in  these  Gospel  records,  there  may 
be  and  are  errors  as  to  fact — legendary  accretions,  human 

'  "  Ways  of  the  Spirit,"  pp.  319,  338.  The  whole  chapter  ("  The  Mythical 
Element  in  the  New  Testament ")  is  full  of  thought,  and  will  well  repay 
perusal  by  any  who  care  to  understand  how  independent  is  moral  and  spirit- 
ual truth  of  its  setting  or  form  of  expression. 


134  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

imperfections  of  one  kind  and  another — but  as  to  the  great 
central  matters  with  which  they  have  to  do,  the  evidence 
is  strong  and  convincing  that  they  are  trustworthy.  Re- 
garding the  miraculous  voice  speaking  at  the  Jordan 
baptism,  or  the  words  of  the  inscription  upon  the  cross,  the 
records  may  err;  but  they  can  hardly  err  about  the  exist- 
ence of  Jesus,  or  about  the  central  facts  of  his  life  and 
death.  There  may  be  ground  for  question  whether  this 
or  that  particular  utterance  purporting  to  have  come 
from  his  lips  is  actually  his,  or  only  the  creation  of  a 
reporter's  memory,  dimmed  by  the  lapse  of  a  quarter  or 
third  of  a  century  since  the  Master  spoke.  But  if  histor- 
ical and  literary  criticism  are  to  be  trusted  at  all,  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  question  about  the  few  great,  simple, 
central  truths,  which,  according  to  all  the  records,  formed 
the  burden  of  his  teaching,  and  which  he  not  only  burned 
into  the  very  souls  of  all  who  heard  him,  but  lifted  as 
eternal  stars  into  the  sky  of  the  world's  hope  and  faith — 
such  truths  as  God's  Fatherhood,  man's  brotherhood,  the 
Golden  Rule  as  a  practical  guide  for  life,  the  duty  of  love 
and  forgiveness  to  enemies,  the  duty  of  sympathy  and 
pity  for  the  poor,  the  suffering  and  the  sinning,  the  cer- 
tainty of  retribution,  the  identity  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
with  love  and  goodness,  the  divineness  and  immortality  of 
the  human  soul.*     That  these  were  his  great  central  teach- 

^  Persons  desiring  to  investigate  further  the  important  subjects  considered 
in  this  chapter,  are  referred  to  Keim's  "Jesus  of  Nazara,"  vol.  i.;  David- 
son's "  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament"  (Gospels)  ;  **  Protestant  Com- 
mentary on  the  New  Testament  "  (Introduction  to  the  Gospels)  ;  Strauss' 
"New  Life  of  Jesus,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  47-194  (Gospel  Sources)  ;  Carpenter's 
"  Synoptic  Gospels  "  ;  Barrow's  "  Regni  Evangelium  "  ;  Cone's  "  Gospel- 
Criticism  and  Historical  Christianity  "  ;  Westcott's  "Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  the  Gospels"  ;  Kenan's  "  Gospels";  Bernhard  Weiss'  "  Manual  of 
Introduction  to  the  New  Testament ";  Baring-Gould's  "  Lost  and  Hostile 


THE  GOSPELS:   THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER.     135 

ings  we  are  as  certain  as  that  he  lived ;  and  of  that  no 
competent  scholar  to-day  has  any  doubt. 

Gospels";  Martineau's  "Seat  of  Authority  "  (chapters  on  the  Gospels); 
Crooker's  "  Jesus  Brought  Back,"  and  "  Different  New  Testament  Views 
of  Jesus  "  ;  E.  A.  Abbott's  article  "  Gospels  "  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica ; 
Schurer  on  the  fourth  Gospel  {Contemporary  Review,  September,  1891) ; 
Ezra  Abbot  and  J.  F.  Clarke  on  same  ;  Chadwick's  "  Bible  of  To-day," 
lee.  viii.;  Pfleiderer's  "  Development  of  Theology  in  Germany,"  bk.  iii.., 
chap.  i. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

PAUL  AND  THE  BOOK  OF  ACTS. 

In  advancing  from  the  Gospels  to  the  other  New 
Testament  books,  we  pass  from  a  study  of  Jesus  and 
his  teaching  to  a  study  of  the  teaching  and  work  of  his 
followers.  We  have  seen  the  foundations  of  the  Chris- 
tian edifice  laid ;  it  is  in  order  to  inquire  next  how  the 
earliest  builders  proceeded  to  erect  the  walls. 

We  come  first  to  a  historical  book  called  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  which  takes  up  the  Christian  story  where 
the  Gospels  lay  it  down,  and  carries  it  on  for  about  forty 
years,  until  congregations  of  believers  in  Jesus  and  his 
doctrine  have  been  established  not  only  all  up  and  down 
Palestine,  but  in  many  of  the  more  important  cities  of 
the  surrounding  countries.  In  addition  to  the  old  names 
of  the  men  and  women  associated  with  Jesus  in  the 
Gospel  narratives,  we  come  now  upon  the  names  of  new 
workers,  some  of  them  very  conspicuous.  By  far  the 
most  important  of  these  is  Saul  of  Tarsus,  called  Paul. 
Indeed,  next  to  Jesus  himself,  Paul  is  the  most  promi- 
nent and  influential  character  connected  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  and  the  production  of  the  New 
Testament.  We  shall  understand  better  both  the  Book 
of  Acts,  and  the  group  of  Epistles  from  his  pen  which 
follow  the  Acts,  if  we  pause  here  a  moment  to  get  a 
connected  view  of  his  life. 

The  Apostle  Paul. — Paul  seems  never  to  have  known 
or  even  seen  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  though  he  could  not  have 


PAUL  AND    THE  BOOK  OF  ACTS.  137 

been  very  much  younger  than  Jesus,  and  was  educated  in 
Jerusalem.  He  was  of  an  ardent  and  impetuous  nature, 
and  not  long  after  the  crucifixion  (perhaps  within  two 
years)  began  to  be  conspicuous  as  a  persecutor  of  the 
little  companies  of  believers  in  Christ  that  were  gather- 
ing not  only  in  Jerusalem  but  in  many  other  places.  The 
same  zeal  which  made  him  afterward  such  an  efficient 
missionary  of  Christianity  now  caused  him  to  carry  his 
persecutions  of  the  hated  sect  of  the  ''  Nazarenes  "  beyond 
Jerusalem  to  the  cities  and  villages  of  Judea,  and  finally 
even  beyond  the  bounds  of  Palestine.  It  was  while  he 
was  on  his  way  to  the  city  of  Damascus,  a  little  way  out- 
side of  Palestine  on  the  northeast,  bent  on  extirpating 
the  new  heresy  there,  that  the  remarkable  event  occurred 
which  changed  his  whole  life.  It  is  evident  that  he  had 
been  greatly  impressed  by  the  steadfastness  and  piety 
of  the  men  and  women  whom  he  had  been  dragging  to 
torture  and  death  ;  nor  could  he  get  rid  of  the  profound 
impression  which  the  life  and  teachings  and  heroic  mar- 
tyrdom of  Jesus  had  made  upon  him,  as  he  had  learned 
more  and  more  about  them.  As  the  great  city  came  into 
view  where  his  work  of  cruelty  and  death  was  so  soon  to 
begin  again,  he  was  overpowered  by  what  is  described  as 
a  vision — a  light  brighter  than  the  sun — and  a  voice 
speaking  out  of  it,  saying,  "  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest 
thou  me  ?  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth  whom  thou  perse- 
cutest." The  nature  of  this  vision  need  not  be  discussed 
here.  It  is  enough  that  as  the  result  of  it  Paul's  whole 
career  was  changed.  From  the  most  zealous  enemy  he 
became  the  most  ardent  advocate  and  propagandist  of 
the  Christian  faith. 

He  first  became  conspicuous  among  the  Christians  at 
Antioch,  the  rich  and  populous  capital  of  Syria,  where  a 


138  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

mixed  Christian  community  of  Jews  and  Gentiles  had 
gradually  been  formed.  Here  he  preached,  and  from  this 
city  as  his  headquarters  he  went  out  on  preaching  tours 
through  various  parts  of  Syria  and  Cilicia. 

Division  in  the  Church. — It  was  here,  at  Antioch,  that 
arose  the  first  great  problem  which  agitated  and  divided 
the  early  Christian  Church.  Was  Christianity  for  the  Jews 
only,  or  was  it  for  the  Gentiles  too  ?  And  if  it  was  for 
the  Gentiles,  must  they  come  into  it  through  the  door  of 
Judaism — that  is,  through  circumcision  and  obedience  to 
the  Jewish  ceremonial  and  moral  law  ?  These  questions 
became  urgent  first  at  Antioch,  but  soon  in  many  other 
places  also,  for  not  only  there  but  elsewhere  others  be- 
sides Jews  were  accepting  the  new  faith  ;  and  how  were 
they  to  be  treated  ?  Paul  from  the  beginning  took  the 
broadest  ground.  He  said  the  death  of  Jesus  on  the 
cross  inaugurated  a  new  covenant  between  God  and 
man,  taking  the  place  of  and  doing  away  with  the  old 
covenant  established  on  Mount  Sinai.  In  this  new  cove- 
nant the  Law  was  annulled  ; /^?V/f  was  the  only  condition 
of  salvation,  and  the  distinction  between  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile was  removed.  To  the  Jewish  Christians  generally 
this  seemed  very  extreme  and  radical  ground,  and  it  was 
not  strange  that  a  division  arose.  They  saw  in  Jesus  sim- 
ply the  Jewish  Messiah ;  but  Paul  proclaimed  him  to  be 
the  Saviour  of  the  whole  world.  They  said  to  converts 
that  in  order  to  obtain  a  place  in  the  new  Messianic 
kingdom  they  must  submit  to  circumcision,  and  obey 
the  command  of  the  Jewish  law  regarding  meats,  the 
Sabbath,  etc.  But  Paul  said  no,  the  only  requisite  for 
admission  was  faith  in  Christ,  and  hearts  pure  before 
God.  It  was  not  long  before  the  parent  church  in  Jeru- 
salem began  to  perceive  the  danger  that  was  arising,  and 


PAUL  AND    THE  BOOK  OF  ACTS.  1 39 

sent  messengers  to  Antioch  with  the  demand  that  the 
Gentile  Christians  should  submit  to  the  requirements  of 
the  Law,  raising  the  watchword  **  Circumcision."  The 
contention  grew  serious.  With  the  hope  of  finding  some 
way  of  settling  the  difficulty,  Paul,  taking  with  him  Bar- 
nabas and  Titus  as  companions,  set  out  for  Jerusalem. 
There  he  laid  the  whole  matter  before  Peter,  John,  and 
James,  who  were  at  the  head  of  the  Jerusalem  church. 
A  settlement  for  the  time  being  was  reached,  though 
the  Jerusalem  apostles  were  not  convinced.  They  would 
devote  themselves  to  missionary  work  among  the  Jews  : 
Paul  might  work  among  the  Gentiles,  and  they  would 
not  disturb  him  even  if  he  did  not  insist  upon  the  circum- 
cision of  his  converts.  On  the  basis  of  this  understand- 
ing they  gave  to  Paul  the  hand  of  fellowship,  and  he 
returned  to  Antioch,  happy  over  the  results  of  his 
journey. 

But  the  difficulty  was  not  really  settled.  Paul's  view 
of  the  new  religious  movement,  and  the  view  held  by 
James,  Peter,  and  John,  were  far  apart.  All  held  in  com- 
mon that  Jesus  was  the  Jewish  Messiah,  who  would  soon 
return  to  establish  his  kingdom.  But  the  Jerusalem 
apostles  saw  in  the  new  faith  little  more  than  an  ad- 
vanced Judaism  (Judaism  with  its  Messianic  hope  ful- 
filled), while  to  Paul  it  was  Judaism  transformed  into  a 
universal  religion.  This  radical  difference  of  view  was 
destined  to  continue  and  to  produce  serious  divisions 
among  the  churches  for  two  or  three  generations.  And 
to  Paul  it  was  destined  to  bring  opposition  and  enmity, 
trouble  and  sorrow,  all  his  life.  To  understand  this  is 
to  have  a  key  to  much  that  otherwise  is  inexplicable 
both  in  the  Book  of  Acts  and  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul — 
indeed,  in  all  the  last  half  of  the  New  Testament.     All 


I40  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

his  life  Paul  devoted  himself  with  tireless  zeal  to  the 
work  of  preaching  Christ,  and  establishing  and  caring 
for  churches  in  Asia  Minor,  in  Cyprus,  in  Macedonia,  in 
Greece,  in  Rome.  The  history  of  this  activity  is  found 
partly  in  the  Acts  and  partly  in  his  Epistles. 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles. — This  book  claims,  in  its 
opening  verse,  the  same  authorship  as  the  Gospel  of 
Luke.  This  claim  is  supported  by  the  style  of  the  writer, 
and  by  the  general  view  which  he  takes  of  the  Christian 
movement,  as  well  as  by  ancient  ecclesiastical  tradition. 

The  death  of  Jesus  occurs  in  the  year  30  A.D.  The 
Book  of  Acts  takes  up  the  Gospel  narrative  here,  and 
continues  it  on  to  the  year  64,  near  the  time  of  the  death 
of  St.  Paul  at  Rome.  This  is  probably  the  reason  why 
the  collectors  of  the  New  Testament  writings  placed  the 
book  between  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
instead  of  far  over  toward  the  end  of  the  canon,  where  it 
would  properly  belong  if  put  in  the  order  of  its  composi- 
tion. 

The  work  naturally  divides  into  two  parts.  The  first, 
extending  from  the  beginning  to  chapter  ix.,  verse  30, 
gives  an  account  of  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Church  in  Palestine.  The  second 
part,  which  is  considerably  longer  than  the  first,  extend- 
ing from  chapter  ix.  30  to  the  end  of  the  book,  traces  the 
spread  of  the  Christian  movement  through  Western  Asia, 
then  to  Europe,  and  finally  to  the  capital  city  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  In  the  first  part,  that  dealing  with  the 
extension  of  the  Gospel  in  Palestine,  the  Apostle  Peter 
is  the  leading  character  ;  in  the  second  part,  that  which 
has  to  do  with  the  carrying  of  Christianity  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, St.  Paul  overshadows  all  others. 

It  is  noticeable  that,  as  a  history,  the  book  is  far  from 


PAUL   AND    THE   BOOK  OF  ACTS.  I4I 

complete.  While  some  things  of  little  or  no  importance 
are  given  in  great  detail,  other  things  of  great  importance 
are  sketched  in  the  barest  outline,  or  omitted  altogether. 
Can  we  in  any  way  find  out  the  motive  which  governs 
the  author  in  his  inclusions  and  exclusions?  In  other 
words,  does  the  book  have  a  purpose  other  than  that  of 
simple  narration  ?  And,  if  so,  can  we  discover  what  it  is? 
These  questions  have  been  the  subject  of  a  great  deal 
of  controversy.  The  Tubingen  school  of  critics,  in  Ger- 
many, have  written  with  great  power  in  support  of  the 
idea  that  the  book  was  composed  with  the  distinct  pur- 
pose of  putting  out  of  sight  as  fully  as  possible  the 
serious  division  which  so  long  existed  among  the  early 
Christians,  and  bringing  the  Jewish  Christian  and  Gentile 
Christian  parties  together  into  one  harmonious  Catholic 
Church.  Thus,  events  showing  the  estrangement  are 
generally  left  unnoticed,  and  those  looking  in  the  direc- 
tion of  fraternity  and  co-operation  are  emphasized.  It  is 
urged  that  this  is  carried  so  far  sometimes  as  quite  to 
distort  the  real  history.  Thus  Paul,  who  was  the  leader 
of  the  Gentile  Christian  party,  and,  as  such,  was  opposed 
and  bitterly  persecuted  all  through  his  career  by  the 
Jewish  Christians,  is  in  the  Acts  represented  as  working 
in  closest  amity  with  Peter,  the  leader  of  the  opposite 
party.  The  two  apostles  are  represented  as  of  equal 
rank,  and  as  being  held  in  equal  esteem  by  all.  Indeed, 
from  some  of  the  narratives  we  should  almost  or  quite 
think  that  Paul  and  Peter  had  changed  places  and 
characters.  Peter,  and  not  Paul,  is  represented  as  the 
one  who  takes  the  first  step  in  the  conversion  of  the 
Gentiles.  Into  Peter's  mouth,  not  Paul's,  is  put  that 
remarkable  utterance,  as  broad  as  anything  in  the  New 
Testament :  **  God   is  no   respecter  of   persons ;    but    in 


142  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

every  nation  he  that  feareth  him  and  worketh  righteous- 
ness is  accepted  with  him."  It  is  Peter,  and  not  Paul, 
that  goes  up  from  Joppa  to  Jerusalem  to  plead  with  the 
apostles  and  brethren  there  in  favor  of  throwing  open  all 
the  privileges  of  Christianity  to  the  Gentiles  on  equal 
terms  with  the  Jews.  On  the  other  hand,  Paul  is  repre- 
sented as  accepting  a  portion  of  the  Jewish  Law  as  bind- 
ing upon  the  Gentile  Christian  communities;  he  himself 
keeps  the  Mosaic  law  strictly;  he  circumcises  the  son  of 
a  Greek  because  his  mother  was  a  Jewess;  he  considers 
himself  as  bound  to  keep  the  Jewish  festivals ;  he  takes 
upon  himself  the  Jewish  vow  of  a  Nazarite  ;  he  represents 
himself  to  the  Jews  as  a  believer  in  the  Scriptures,  in  the 
old  sense,  and  as  a  Pharisee  ;  and  he  is  represented  always, 
even  to  the  very  last,  as  preaching  first  to  the  Jews  in 
whatsoever  place  he  was. 

Now  all  this,  say  Baur  and  Zeller,  is  a  very  different 
picture  from  that  which  Paul  draws  for  us  in  his  Epistles 
— so  different,  indeed,  that  the  two  cannot  be  reconciled. 
What  answer  shall  we  make  ?  Scholarship  to-day  is  not 
fully  sustaining  the  Tubingen  critics;  it  is  convicting 
them  of  going  too  far,  of  exaggerating,  of  making  diffi- 
culties that  do  not  exist.  At  the  same  time  it  has  to  be 
confessed  that  much  in  their  position  stands  firm  against 
every  effort  to  overthrow  it.  The  more  thorough  the 
investigation,  the  more  clear  it  becomes  that  the  Book  of 
Acts  is  a  **  tendency-writing."  It  has  another  aim  besides 
that  of  simple  narration.  It  has  a  case  to  make  out.  Its 
pictures  of  the  relations  existing  between  Peter  and  Paul, 
or  between  the  Jewish  Christians  on  the  one  side  and 
the  Gentile  Christians  on  the  other,  are  not  always  the 
same  as  those  found  in  Paul's  Epistles,  nor  even  always 
reconcilable  therewith.     The  book  has  to  be  read  with 


PAUL  AND    THE  BOOK  OF  ACTS.  I43 

these  facts  in  view.  This  done,  it  takes  its  place  as  a 
work  of  great  historic  as  well  as  religious  value.  But  if 
the  bias  be  unrecognized,  the  book  becomes  at  many- 
points  misleading. 

It  is  of  some  importance  to  notice  that  this  book,  as 
well  as  the  earlier  work  from  the  same  hand  (Luke's  Gos- 
pel), is  at  least  to  some  extent  a  compilation.  It  is 
believed  that  there  are  traces  of  several  documents  to  be 
found  in  it.  One  is  very  clearly  observable.  At  several 
points  in  the  second  half  of  the  book,  as  we  read  along, 
we  suddenly  find  our  narrator,  without  any  warning, 
changing  from  the  use  of  the  third  person  to  that  of  the 
first  person  plural,  "we."  It  is  generally  agreed  by  critics 
that  the  portions  in  which  this  "  we  **  is  used  are  a  docu- 
ment, in  the  nature  of  a  diary  of  travel,  which  the  com- 
piler has  inserted  into  his  narrative.^ 

The  date  of  the  Book  of  Acts  is  not  easy  to  ascer- 
tain. Scholars  differ  much  concerning  it.  Some  whose 
judgment  is  of  much  worth  (as  Meyer)  name  the  year  80 
A.D.  Others  would  carry  it  on  to  130,  or  later.  But 
these  are  extreme  positions.  The  probability  seems 
strong  that  it  was  produced  between  85  and  lOO  A.D. 
Perhaps  this  is  as  much  as  can  be  said  with  safety.  The 
place  of  composition  was  very  likely  Rome. 

*  Chaps,  xvi.  10-17  \  xx«  4-i5  \  xxi.  i-i8  ;  xxvii.  i-xxviii.  16. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

THE   EPISTLES   OF   PAUL.* 

Next  to  the  Gospels,  the  most  important  group  of 
writings  in  the  New  Testament  consists  of  the  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul.  Just  how  many  we  ought  to  count  as  belong- 
ing to  this  group  cannot  be  told  with  certainty.  Four- 
teen Epistles  are  popularly  connected  with  Paul's  name, 
but  that  this  number  is  wrong  all  scholars  agree.  Nobody 
disputes  that  four  are  his ;  namely,  Romans,  First  and 
Second  Corinthians,  and  Galatians  ;  and  that  to  these, 
three  others — First  Thessalonians,  Philippians,  and  Phile- 
mon— ought  to  be  added,  comparatively  few  scholars 
doubt.  Regarding  Colossians,  Ephesians,  and  Second 
Thessalonians,  critics  are  about  evenly  divided.  That 
First  and  Second  Timothy  and  Titus  are  from  a  later 
hand  is  well-nigh  certain,  while  Hebrews  no  scholar  to- 
day thinks  of  mentioning  in  connection  with  Paul. 

Paul's  Epistles  are  particularly  valuable  for  three 
reasons.  First,  they  are  our  earliest  New  Testament 
writings,  being  all  of  them  older  than  our  oldest  Gospel. 
Secondly,  we  know  their  author  (with  the  limitations 
just  named),  while  the  authors  of  most  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament  books  we  do  not  know.     Thirdly,  their  writer, 


*  The  headings  of  this  chapter  and  the  next  are  not  strictly  correct.  Some 
of  the  Epistles  considered  here  are  almost  certainly  non-Pauline.  The 
Pauline  and  the  non-Pauline  Epistles  cannot  be  grouped  separately,  with 
exactness,  without  departing  from  the  order  followed  in  the  New  Testa- 
meDt. 


THE  EPISTLES   OF  PAUL.  145 

though  not  one  of  the  Twelve,  may  properly  be  called 
the  greatest  of  the  apostles. 

Paul  was  the  great  missionary  of  the  early  Church. 
Indeed,  he  wrote  his  Epistles  as  a  part  of  his  mission- 
ary activity.  Wishing  to  instruct  or  admonish  or  encour- 
age or  comfort  a  church  of  believers  whom  he  had 
gathered  together  in  some  distant  place,  whom  he  loved 
but  could  not  at  present  visit,  he  wrote  them  a  letter 
warm  with  the  message  that  was  in  his  heart.  Thus,  as 
the  years  went  on,  the  letters,  written  here  and  there,  to 
meet  the  urgent  needs  that  arose,  multiplied.  Not  all 
that  he  wrote  are  preserved.  But  enough  remain  to  give 
us  a  very  clear  insight  into  the  life,  the  religious  views, 
the  motives  and  aims,  as  well  as  the  joys  and  sorrows, 
the  conflicts  and  triumphs,  the  qualities — some  of  them 
peccable  enough,  but  some  in  the  highest  degree  splendid 
and  noble — of  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  the 
man  whose  genius,  profound  spiritual  insight,  and  daunt- 
less courage  prevented  Christianity  from  narrowing  and 
hardening  into  a  mere  Jewish  sect,  and  started  it  on  its 
great  career  as  a  world-religion. 

Of  the  seven  undoubtedly  genuine  Epistles  of  Paul 
the  true  chronological  order  is  probably  as  follows:  First 
Thessalonians,  Galatians,  First  and  Second  Corinthians, 
Romans,  Philemon,  Philippians.  I  shall  consider  them, 
however,  in  the  order  in  which  they  stand  in  the  New 
Testament. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  taken  all  in  all,  is  the 
most  important  of  Paul's  writings.  Perhaps  this  is  the 
reason  why  it  has  been  placed  first  in  our  canon.  It  was 
written  in  Corinth,  probably  in  the  year  58  A. D.  Paul  has 
not  at  this  time  been  in  Rome,  but  is  about  setting  his 
face  in  that  direction.     Accordingly  he  writes  this  letter 


146  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE  BIBLE. 

and  sends  it  in  advance  to  prepare  the  way  for  his  coming. 
Already  a  considerable  Christian  community  has  been 
established  in  that  great  centre  of  the  western  world, 
and  it  is  natural  that  he  should  crave  a  friendly  reception 
among  them.  How  may  he  insure  it,  since  he  has 
reason  to  believe  that  many  of  the  Jewish  Christians 
there  are  strictly  attached  to  the  Law,  and  are  hostile  to 
that  broader  view  which  he  preaches?  He  resolves  upon 
the  frank  and  bold  course  of  writing  them  a  long  letter, 
stating  fully  his  position  and  the  reasons  why  he  holds  it, 
and  explaining  and  justifying  his  missionary  work  among 
the  Gentiles.  This  is  what  he  does  in  this  Epistle.  We 
have  here  not  only  the  fullest  statement  of  Paul's  doc- 
trinal views  which  he  anywhere  gives  us,  but  it  is  written 
out  after  his  thought  has  reached  a  late  and  ripe  stage. 

The  Epistle  falls  naturally  into  several  divisions.  But 
these  need  not  be  pointed  out.  It  is  enough  to  notice 
that  there  is  some  doubt  among  scholars  about  the 
genuineness  of  the  fifteenth  chapter,  and  a  good  deal 
about  that  of  the  sixteenth. 

First  and  Second  Corinthians. — Corinth  was  a  rich 
and  corrupt  city.  Paul  labored  a  year  and  a  half  there, 
and  established  an  important  church.  But  its  members 
did  not  wholly  escape  the  temptations  that  surrounded 
them.  Various  immoralities  and  serious  religious  dis- 
sensions arose  among  them,  which  grieved  the  apostle 
greatly.  As  a  result,  he  writes  two  long  and  earnest 
letters,  exhorting  them  to  put  away  from  among  them- 
selves every  kind  of  sin,  and  to  heal  their  divisions,  fol- 
lowing neither  him  nor  any  other  disciple  but  only  Jesus. 
Several  chapters,  particularly  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  and 
fifteenth  in  the  first  Epistle,  on  spiritual  gifts,  charity, 
and    the    Resurrection,    rank    in    ethical    and    spiritual 


THE  EPISTLES   OF  PAUL.  147 

quality  with  the  very  best  of  Paul's  writings.  The  sub 
scriptions  to  the  Epistles  say  that  they  were  written 
at  Philippi.  In  the  case  of  the  second  this  may  be 
correct,  though  there  are  some  doubts  about  it.  But  in 
the  case  of  the  first  it  is  almost  certainly  a  mistake, 
the  place  of  authorship  being  probably  Ephesus.  As  to 
time,  perhaps  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  Epistles 
were  written  about  the  year  57  or  58  A.D.  They  seem  to 
have  been  preceded  by  another  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
which  has  not  been  preserved.  The  genuineness  of  the 
two  we  have  is  undoubted. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  was  probably  written  by 
Paul  from  Ephesus,  about  the  year  56  A.D.  This  was  per- 
haps two  years  and  a  half  after  his  establishment  of  the 
Christian  communities  among  the  Galatians,  to  whom 
he  writes.  The  occasion  of  the  Epistle  is  the  lapse  of 
these  communities  into  a  narrow,  Judaistic  form  of 
Christianity,  caused  by  the  coming  among  them  of  ad- 
vocates of  the  narrower  view.  The  Epistle  is  a  stanch 
defence  of  Paul's  broader  and  more  spiritual  faith.  Per- 
haps no  other  New  Testament  writing  reveals  to  us  so 
clearly  the  difference  between  Paul's  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity and  that  of  the  Jewish  Christian  party  who  fol- 
lowed the  leadership  of  James,  Peter,  and  John  and  the 
church  at  Jerusalem. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  is  a  battle-field  of  New 
Testament  scholarship.  The  genuineness  of  this  Epistle 
began  to  be  doubted  only  in  recent  times,  but  the  doubt 
has  extended  to  such  scholars  as  Schleiermacher,  De 
Wette,  F.  C.  Baur,  Schwegler,  Ewald,  Hilgenfeld,  David- 
son, Holtzmann,  and  many  others — authorities  whose 
judgment  cannot  be  ignored.  Professor  Holtzmann  gives 
the  following  reasons  for  believing  the  Epistle  not  to  be 


148  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Paul's:  (i)  The  Epistle  addresses  itself  to  a  purely  Gen- 
tile Christian  public.  Paul  would  not  have  made  such  a 
mistake,  for  he  had  preached  much  and  spent  much  time 
in  Ephesus,  and  knew  that  there  was  an  important  Jew- 
ish Christian  element  there.  (2)  The  Epistle  betrays  no 
acquaintance  between  the  writer  and  the  readers,  whereas 
Paul's  acquaintance  among  the  Ephesian  Christians  was 
intimate.  (3)  The  writer  sends  no  greetings  ;  but  if  Paul 
had  been  writing  to  friends  and  brethren  he  would  have 
sent  many,  as  he  does  in  all  his  Epistles.  (4)  The  Epistle 
is  entirely  devoted  to  the  promotion  of  the  unity  of  the 
Christian  Church,  on  the  ground  of  the  unity  of  God's 
plan  of  salvation,  which  embraces  the  whole  human 
world,  and  which  is  contrasted  with  the  previous  division 
of  humanity  into  Jews  and  Gentiles.  But  this  is  not  the 
language  of  one  who  is  engaged  in  the  very  heat  of  a 
battle  to  gain  a  place  for  the  Gentiles  in  the  Church. 
(5)  The  writer  of  this  Epistle  refers  to  **  the  apostles"  as 
a  third  party  to  which  he  does  not  belong — something 
which  Paul  would  not  have  done.  (6)  The  language  and 
style  of  this  Epistle  are  not  those  of  Paul.  The  Epistle 
is  smooth  and  redundant ;  Paul  is  terse.  Above  all,  it 
employs  many  peculiar  terms,  words,  and  figures  of 
speech  which  are  foreign  to  Paul  as  we  judge  of  him  by 
his  well-known  writings.  (7)  Some  of  its  leading  ideas 
are  not  in  harmony  with  those  of  Paul.  For  example, 
the  doctrine  of  the  residence  of  evil  spirits  in  the  air, 
and  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Epistle  itself — that 
Christianity  is  a  mystery  concealed  in  God  from  eternity. 
(8)  The  Epistle  reveals  all  through  it  the  atmosphere  of 
Gnostic  thought,  in  the  frequent  use  of  such  words  and 
expressions  as  '*  all  wisdom  and  prudence,"  '*  making 
known,"    *'  revealing,"  "  hearing,"    "  learning,"    *'  knowl- 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  PAUL.  I49 

edge,"  "  mystery,"  "  fullness,"  *'  aeons,"  "  generations," 
"  lords  of  creation  " — expressions  which  the  Gnostic  lit- 
erature of  the  second  century  is  full  of.  This  Gnostic 
thought  obtrudes  itself  into  the  Christology  of  the  Epis- 
tle, carrying  it  far  beyond  the  Pauline  limits.  In  the 
place  of  the  "  second  Adam,"  who  exists  for  the  sake 
of  the  human  world,  it  puts  a  being  existing  before 
the  world,  who  is  at  the  same  time  the  central  point 
and  end  of  the  whole  created  world,  and  in  whom,  there- 
fore, the  earthly  and  the  heavenly  spheres  alike  first 
reach  their  articulate  yet  harmonious  unity.  This  is  not 
Paul,  but  the  Gnosticism  of  the  century  after  his  death. 

Such  is  a  brief  summary  of  Holtzmann's  reasons  for 
attributing  this  Epistle  to  a  later  hand  than  Paul's.  Cer- 
tainly the  Christology  which  we  find  here  is  very  far 
removed  from  that  of  the  synoptic  Gospels,  as  it  is  also 
far  removed  from  that  of  the  early  and  certainly  genu- 
ine Epistles  of  Paul.  We  are  here  approaching  the 
Logos  doctrine  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  Christ  is  yet  dis- 
tinctly subordinate  to  God,  but  he  is  lifted  far  above 
humanity. 

Perhaps  all  we  can  do  is  to  leave  the  Epistle  in  the  list 
of  those  whose  genuineness  is  simply  doubtful.  If  we 
cannot  be  sure  (as  perhaps  v/e  cannot)  that  Paul  did  not 
write  it,  we  certainly  cannot  be  sure  that  he  did  write  it. 
If  he  wrote  it,  it  was  doubtless  while  he  was  at  Rome, 
near  or  during  the  year  63  A.D.  But  if  he  wrote  it  he 
was  much  changed  from  the  Paul  of  earlier  years.  If  it 
came  from  some  other  hand  than  Paul's  its  date  is  prob- 
ably late — 100  A.D.  or  after.  Davidson  thinks  it  was  writ- 
ten between  130  and  140  A.D.  But  he  does  not  for  this 
reason  esteem  the  Epistle  lightly.  He  says:  **  It  was 
evidently  the  work  of  a  thoughtful  Christian,  far-seeing, 


150  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

comprehensive  in  the  range  of  his  ideas,  possessed  of  a 
high  inspiration.  Compared  with  the  Epistle  to  the  Colos- 
sians,  it  is  certainly  inferior ;  viewed  by  itself  it  claims  a 
leading  place  among  the  canonical  Epistles.  The  school 
of  Paul  produced  none  equal  to  himself,  but  it  gave  rise 
to  men  of  large  sympathies — some  choice  spirits  on 
whom  the  mantle  of  the  departed  may  be  said  to  have 
fallen.  .  .  .  The  writer's  object  [in  this  Epistle]  was 
to  hold  up  to  the  view  of  the  Ephesians  a  universal 
Church  of  which  they  were  a  part — a  Church  constituting 
the  fullness  of  Christ,  and  one  with  him."  ^ 

The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  is  probably  the  latest 
of  Paul's  writings.  It  appears  to  have  been  written  while 
he  was  in  Rome  as  a  prisoner,  A.D.  62  or  63.  Its  genuine- 
ness has  been  questioned,  principally  on  the  ground  that 
some  of  its  passages  seem  to  have  a  Gnostic  flavor.  Still, 
the  weight  of  scholarship  is  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  its 
Pauline  authorship.  It  is  the  shortest  Epistle  addressed 
to  any  church,  except  the  doubtful  Second  Thessalonians. 
As  to  matter,  it  is  partly  doctrinal  and  partly  practical, 
but  the  doctrinal  and  the  practical  portions  are  not  kept 
separate. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  of  doubtful  author- 
ship. If  it  is  Paul's,  it  was  probably  written  at  Rome, 
in  the  year  62  A.D.  The  principal  reasons  for  doubting 
Paul's  connection  with  it  are  three  :  (i)  The  similarity 
which  exists  between  this  Epistle  and  that  to  the  Ephe- 
sians, causing  many  scholars  to  believe  that  one  is  de- 
rived from  the  other ;  (2)  the  fact  that  it  contains  senti- 
ments which  savor  of  heresies  (as  Gnosticism  and  Mon- 
tanism)  which  did  not  arise  until  after   Paul's  death  ;  (3) 

*  "Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  225,  2d  ed. 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  PAUL.  I51 

peculiarities  of  style  and  use  of  unusual  words  not  found 
in  Paul's  undoubted  writings.^ 

If  the  Epistle  is  not  from  Paul  it  is  probably  late. 
Davidson  thinks  it  originated  in  Asia  Minor,  about  120 
A.D.     A  conservative  date  is  100  A.d. 

It  may  be  divided  into  two  parts,  the  first  (chapters  i. 
and  ii.)  chiefly  doctrinal,  and  the  second  (chapters  iii. 
and  iv.)  practical. 

First  and  Second  Thessalonians. — Of  the  first  of 
these  Epistles  the  genuineness  is  clear.  It  is  the  earliest 
production  that  we  have  from  the  hand  of  Paul;  and 
that  means  that  it  is  the  oldest  written  document  of 
Christianity.  It  was  composed,  probably,  during  the 
year  53  or  54  A.D.,  and  most  likely  at  Corinth,  not  at 
Athens  as  the  subscription  in  our  common  version  says. 
Its  contents  are  not  particularly  remarkable:  the  first 
part  is  a  defence  against  the  apostle's  opponents ;  the 
second  is  affectionately  personal;  the  third  and  last  is 
hortatory  and  didactic. 

The  genuineness  of  the  second  Epistle  is  very  widely 
doubted.  Its  style  is  distinctly  different  from  that  of  the 
first;  its  contents  seem  in  part  to  imitate  and  in  part 
to  contradict  those  of  the  genuine  Epistle.  If  from  Paul 
it  was  written  about  54  A.  D. ;  if  not  from  Paul  its  date 
may  be  the  year  70  A.D. 

First  and  Second  Timothy,  and  Titus. — These  are 
commonly  known  as  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  because  they 
consist  mainly  of  instructions  for  pastoral  work.  Though 
popularly  associated  with  Paul's  name,  much  very  careful 
scholarship  is   agreed  in  denying   Paul's  authorship,  and 

'  The  reasons  given  on  a  preceding  page  for  doubting  the  Pauline  author- 
ship of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  apply  in  almost  every  particular  to  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 


152 


ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


in  assigning  them  to  the  early  part  of  the  second  century, 
say  to  the  decade  loo-iio  A.D.,  or  later.  There  are  good 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  Epistle  known  as  Second 
Timothy  is  really  the  oldest,  and  that  the  one  known  as 
First  Timothy  is  the  latest,  while  that  to  Titus  falls  be- 
tween the  other  two ;  though  the  difference  between  the 
ages  of  the  three  is  not  great.  Probably  all  were  written 
by  the  same  person.  That  called  Second  Timothy  is 
believed  by  Weiss,  Hausrath,  Pfleiderer,  Ewald,  Davidson, 
and  others  to  contain  brief  genuine  fragments  from  Paul. 

The  reasons  for  holding  that  these  Epistles  are,  in  the 
main,  post-Pauline  are  too  numerous,  intricate,  and  tech- 
nical for  statement  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  they  are 
believed  to  be  valid  by  a  large  number  of  very  eminent 
New  Testament  scholars,  including  not  only  those  just 
named,  but  such  others  as  De  Wette,  Meyer,  Hilgenfeld, 
Holtzmann,  Liicke,  Neander,  and  Bleek. 

As  to  the  authorship  and  aim  of  the  three  Epistles, 
Davidson  says:  **  We  rest  in  the  conclusion  that  the 
author  was  a  Pauline  Christian  who  lived  at  Rome  in  the 
first  part  of  the  second  century,  and  wished  to  confirm 
the  incipient  Catholic  Church  in  the  old  paths,  by  exhor- 
tations to  piety,  and  warnings  against  error.  His  view 
was  polemical  only  in  part.  To  the  growing  dangers  of 
the  time  he  opposed  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Church, 
and  a  well-ordered  ecclesiastical  organization.  .  .  .  Like 
many  others  of  his  day,  the  author  chose  the  name  of  an 
apostle  to  give  currency  to  his  sentiments.  In  all  this 
there  was  no  dishonesty.  The  device  was  a  harmless 
one." 

The  Epistle  to  Philemon  was  probably  written  by 
Paul,  though  a  few  critics  of  candor  and  standing  think 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  PAUL,  153 

to  the  contrary.  Its  date  we  may  pretty  confidently  set 
down  as  the  year  62  A.D.,  and  its  place  of  composition  as 
Rome.  As  it  is  the  shortest,  so  it  is  the  least  important 
of  the  extant  Epistles  of  the  great  apostle.  It  has  often 
been  called  the  slaveholder's  Epistle.  Whether  or  not 
we  ought  to  condemn  Paul's  conduct  in  sending  back  a 
slave  to  his  master  under  the  very  peculiar  circumstances, 
certain  it  is  that  the  Epistle  has  been  largely  used  in 
justification  of  the  terrible  sin  of  slavery.^ 


1  Perhaps  our  study  of  Paul  and  the  writings  ascribed  to  him  ought  not  to 
conclude  without  mention  of  a  very  radical  and  revolutionary  theory  which 
is  attracting  attention  in  some  quarters.  One  of  its  leading  exponents  is 
Prof.  W.  C.  Van  Manen  of  the  University  of  Leyden,  Holland.  It  has 
been  given  some  currency  in  this  country  and  England  by  Professor  Van 
Manen's  advocacy  of  it  in  his  articles  on  "  Paul,"  "Philemon,"  "  Philippians" 
and  •'  Romans  "  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica.  The  theory,  stated  in  a  few 
words,  is,  that  none  of  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  usually  ascribed 
to  Paul  are  really  from  Paul,  but  were  written  by  others  in  his  name  some- 
time during  the  second  century,  in  other  words,  that  these  Epistles  instead 
of  being  the  earliest  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  produced  before  any  of 
the  Gospels,  are  actually  late  productions,  originating  half  a  century  or  more 
after  the  Gospels,  and  portraying  a  distinctly  later  stage  in  the  development 
of  Christian  thought.  A  number  of  reasons  are  given  for  this  view,  of  which 
the  strongest  are  perhaps  these  two:  (i)  that  in  the  Book  of  Acts  the 
principal  theme  of  Paul's  preaching  is  represented  as  being  "  the  things  con- 
cerning Jesus,"  whereas  in  these  Epistles  hardly  an  event  in  the  life  of 
Jesus  except  his  death,  and  scarcely  a  word  of  his  teaching,  is  ever 
mentioned;  and  (2)  that  the  theological  questions  which  form  the  main 
subject-matter  of  the  Epistles  were  all  questions  which  did  not  arise  for 
consideration  and  discussion  until  the  second  century.  For  a  more  full 
presentation  of  Van  Manen's  view,  see  the  above  mentioned  articles  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Biblica ;  also  chapter  xiii.  in  Newton  Mann's  "  The  Evolution 
of  a  Great  Literature,"  1905. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE  NON-PAULINE  EPISTLES  AND  THE  REVELATION. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. — The  later  Greek  and 
Latin  manuscripts  ascribe  this  Epistle  to  St.  Paul,  as 
does  our  Authorized  Version  ;  but  the  older  manuscripts 
do  not.  The  Western  Church  of  the  early  centuries  did 
not  accept  it  as  Pauline,  and  it  had  difficulty  in  getting 
into  the  New  Testament  Canon.  Says  Luther :  "  That  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  neither  from  the  hand  of  St. 
Paul,  nor  of  any  other  apostle,  is  proved  by  ii.  3.  ...  It 
is  evident  that  it  is  the  work  of  an  excellent  and  learned 
man,  who  was  a  disciple  of  the  apostles  and  had  learnt 
much  of  them,  and  who  also  had  experience  in  the  faith, 
and  skill  in  the  Scriptures."  Scholarship  since  Luther 
has  confirmed  his  judgment  and  that  of  the  early  Church. 
Davidson  says  :  "  The  Pauline  authorship  has  been  given 
up  by  every  scholar  except  Hofmann."  Who  the  author 
was  can  only  be  conjectured.  Some  have  thought  Bar- 
nabas, some  Luke,  some  Silas,  some  Clement  of  Rome, 
some  Apollos.  The  last  name  is  the  suggestion  of 
Luther,  and  the  tendency  among  scholars  now  is  to 
accept  it  as  the  most  probable  of  any. 

As  to  the  date  of  the  Epistle,  there  has  been  a  wide 
agreement  that  it  must  be  fixed  as  anterior  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple.  But  this  view  is  losing 
ground.  Perhaps  the  consensus  of  scholarship  now  favors 
the  decade  75-85  A.D.     Harnack  says  81-96. 


NON-PA  ULINE  EPISTLES  AND  THE  RE  VELA  TION.     1 5  S 

To  whom  was  the  Epistle  written  ?  Many  have 
thought,  to  the  Hebrews  of  Palestine ;  but  to  this  view 
there  are  insuperable  objections.  Hilgenfeld  says,  to 
the  Hebrews  of  Alexandria,  in  Egypt,  where  there  was 
a  large  Jewish  population,  among  whom  Christianity 
was  introduced  very  early.  Many  considerations  favor 
this  view,  among  them  the  fact  that  Apollos  was  an 
Alexandrian  Jew.  Perhaps  this  view  has  best  sup- 
port. 

The  Epistle  is  a  powerful  one,  hardly  falling  below 
any  production  of  Paul  in  strength  of  logic,  earnestness, 
or  eloquence ;  but  its  leading  characteristics  of  style  and 
thought  are  far  removed  from  those  of  Paul.  Up  to  the 
nineteenth  verse  of  the  tenth  chapter,  the  Epistle  is 
doctrinal ;  the  rest  is  hortatory.  The  object  of  the 
writer  is  to  conciliate  the  Jewish  Christians  and  lead 
them  to  a  larger  view  of  the  new  faith.  To  do  this  he 
argues  that  the  Old  Covenant  was  but  a  shadow  of  the 
New;  Judaism,  with  its  law  and  its  temple,  was  but  a 
prototype  of  Christianity;  the  Jewish  priesthood  was 
only  a  type  and  prophecy  of  Christ,  the  eternal  high 
priest.  The  Christology  of  the  Epistle  is  elaborate  and 
advanced. 

The  Epistle  of  James. — If  this  book  was  written  by 
any  one  of  the  three  James's  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament,  it  was  probably  the  one  spoken  of  as  '*  the 
Lord's  brother."  ^  Did  it  come  from  him  ?  There  seem 
to  be  strong  reasons  for  answering  yes.  And  yet  it  must 
be  confessed  that  there  seem  also  to  be  some  reasons 
for  answering  no.  On  the  whole,  the  authorship  of  the 
Epistle  may  be  set  down  as  uncertain.     It  was  not  until 

*  Gal.  i.  19.     See  Josephus's  "  Antiquities,"  bk.  xx.  chap.  ix. 


156  ORIGIN'  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

the  last  half  of  the  fourth  century  that  it  was  given  a 
place  in  the  Canon;  and  there  has  hardly  been  an  age 
since,  that  has  been  free  from  deniers  of  its  right  to  be 
there.  Luther  wrote  of  it :  ''  It  is  an  Epistle  of  straw  in 
comparison  with  them  (the  Epistles  of  Paul,  Peter,  and 
John),  for  it  has  nothing  evangelical  about  it."  "  Methinks 
it  must  have  been  some  good,  pious  man  that  took  some 
sayings  of  the  disciples  of  the  apostles  and  put  them  down 
on  paper.**  It  is  certain  that  its  teaching  departs  widely 
from  Paul's ;  whether  it  contradicts  it  or  only  supple- 
ments it,  is  a  question  which  different  New  Testament 
students  answer  in  different  ways.  Davidson  says :  "  It 
breathes  a  healthy  spirit,  and  presents  views  of  life  that 
are  eminently  Christian.  Its  practical  tone  is  a  preserva- 
tive against  the  Pauline  element  in  excess.  ...  It 
contradicts  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  in  relation  to  the 
doctrine  of  justification.  But  it  is  a  valuable  letter,  not- 
withstanding, because  dogmatic  does  not  constitute  the 
essence  of  Christianity,  which  has  an  ethical  side  as  im- 
portant as  the  speculative."  Perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able thing  about  it  is  the  fact  that  it  says  so  little  about 
Christ,  not  even  mentioning  his  death  or  resurrection. 
Yet  its  teachings  remind  one  forcibly  of  those  of  Jesus, 
being  rich  in  that  ethical  quality  which  we  find  every- 
where in  his  sayings  and  parables. 

As  a  literary  production  the  Epistle  is  of  a  high 
order.  It  language  is  vivid,  choice,  rhetorical,  often  po- 
etical. 

If  this  letter  was  not  written  by  James,  the  brother  of 
Jesus,  its  date  is  probably  85-95  A.D.  (Harnack  surprises  us 
by  saying  120-140).  If  it  is  from  Jesus'  brother,  it  can 
hardly  have  been  written  later  than  50  A.D. 

The  First  and  Second  Epistles  of  Peter.— Many  New 


NON-PA  ULINE  EPISTLES  AND  THE  RE  VELA  TION.     1 57 

Testament  scholars  of  eminence  believe  the  first  of  these 
Epistles  to  be  the  production  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  in 
accordance  with  ancient  tradition,  and  with  the  claim 
of  the  Epistle  itself.  This  view  is  now  much  doubted, 
however;  indeed  the  weight  of  present  scholarship  is 
probably  against  it.  The  Epistle  purports  to  have  been 
written  in  Babylon  ;  but  this  name  is  doubtless  used  here, 
as  in  the  Book  of  Revelation,  as  a  mystical  designation 
for  Rome.  Everything  indicates  that  Rome  was  the  real 
place  of  its  composition.  If  Peter  was  the  writer,  then  its 
date  must  be  fixed  at  about  the  year  64  A.D.,  during  the 
Neronian  persecution.  But  there  is  a  growing  feeling 
that  this  date  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  contents  of 
the  Epistle  itself.  In  the  first  place,  the  Epistle  seems 
at  many  points  to  betray,  on  the  part  of  its  author,  a 
familiarity  with,  if  not  a  dependence  upon,  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  the  Epistle  of  James,  that  to  the  Hebrews, 
and  the  Book  of  Revelation.  This  would  necessitate  for 
it  a  date  subsequent  to  the  composition  of  these  works. 
Still  more  decisive  is  the  fact  that  the  Epistle  assumes  a 
universal  persecution  of  the  Christians  throughout  the 
Roman  Empire,  if  not  throughout  the  world — a  condition 
of  things  which  carries  us  on  far  beyond  the  persecution 
instigated  by  Nero  (which  was  only  local,  and  confined  to 
Rome),  to  the  reign  of  Trajan.  Scholars  who  adopt  this 
view  fix  the  date  of  the  Epistle  at  about  the  year  113  A.D. 
Says  Hilgenfeld :  "  We  must  conclude  that  the  Epistle 
was  written  by  a  Roman  Christian,  in  the  time  of  Trajan, 
in  the  name  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  whose  name  was  so 
celebrated  in  Rome,  and  that  it  was  intended  to  strengthen 
all  Christendom,  but  especially  the  most  oppressed  com- 
munities of  Asia."  He  also  points  out,  as  do  other 
writers,  how  few  of  the  peculiar  views  and  characteristics 


158  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

of  Peter  appear  in  the  Epistle.     Harnack  places  its  date 
between  81  and  96  A.D. 

Passing  to  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  we  find  still 
fewer  evidences  of  genuineness.  There  was  much  doubt 
concerning  it  in  the  ancient  Church.  Distinguished  men 
like  Origen  and  Eusebius  did  not  believe  the  letter  was 
from  Peter.  There  is  also  strong  internal  evidence  against 
it.  If  we  turn  to  the  third  chapter  (verses  15  and  16),  we 
find  it  speaking  of  the  Epistles  of  Paul  as  scriptures  on 
a  par  with  *' the  other  scriptures"  (iii.  15,  16).  This 
passage  alone  makes  it  clear  that  the  Epistle  was  written 
long  after  Peter's  death,  for  not  until  post-apostolic  times 
did  Paul's  writings  come  to  be  regarded  as  scriptures. 
Moreover,  the  Epistle  strongly  condemns  certain  false 
doctrines,  which,  as  we  examine  them,  we  discover  to 
be  the  free-thinking  Gnosticism  of  the  second  century. 
These  are  a  few  of  the  many  indications  of  the  late  date 
of  this  Epistle.  There  is  a  very  wide  agreement  among 
the  best  scholars  that  we  have  here  the  latest  New  Testa 
ment  writing.  Its  date  cannot  be  earlier  than  150  A.D. ; 
Harnack  thinks  it  160.  The  place  of  composition  was 
probably  Rome. 

Says  Davidson  :  "  The  leading  ideas  of  both  Petrine 
Epistles  are  Pauline.  .  .  .  Paulinism  and  Petrinism 
meet.  Faith  and  works  together  are  the  keynote,  with- 
out one-sided  prominence  of  either.  The  spirit  of  both 
Epistles  is  eclectic,  mediating,  catholic." 

The  First,  Second,  and  Third  Epistles  of  John. — The 
first  of  these  Epistles  is  in  every  way  superior  to  the 
other  two.  It  has  all  the  characteristics  of  the  fourth 
Gospel,  and  was  almost  certainly  written  by  the  same 
author.  The  date  that  we  must  assign  to  it  (which  can- 
not be   far  removed  from  that  of  the  Gospel)  depends 


NON-PA  ULINE  EPZSTLES  AND  THE  RE  VELA  TION.     1 59 

upon  whether  we  accept  or  reject  the  theory  that  it  was 
written  by  the  Apostle  John.  If  we  accept  that  theory, 
we  must  date  our  Epistle  about  95  or  98  A.D. ;  or,  if, 
with  the  growing  tendency  of  scholarship,  we  reject  it, 
we  must  carry  the  production  of  the  Epistle  forward  to 
100  or  1 10  A.D.,  or  later  still.  Most  0/  the  arguments 
that  bear  upon  the  authorship  or  date  of  the  one  book 
hold  good  when  applied  to  the  other.  The  place  of 
writing  was  probably  Asia  Minor.  For  purposes  of 
spiritual  edification,  the  Epistle,  as  well  as  the  Gospel, 
stands  at  the  very  head  of  the  New  Testament  litera- 
ture. 

Passing  to  the  Second  and  Third  Epistles,  we  make 
a  perceptible  descent.  It  is  a  question  whether  these 
writings  are  from  the  same  hand  as  the  First.  They  seem 
quite  as  much  like  compilations  from  the  First,  or  feeble 
imitations  of  it,  as  like  original  compositions.  The  ancient 
Church  was  undecided  as  to  whether  they  ought  to  have 
a  place  in  the  Canon,  perhaps  because  their  contents  did 
not  seem  of  sufficient  importance,  and  perhaps  because 
they  had  the  appearance  of  being  merely  private  letters. 
They  were  probably  written  in  Asia  Minor,  and  not  long 
after  the  First  Epistle. 

The  Epistle  of  Jude. — This  book  is  one  of  the  least 
important  in  the  Bible.  We  cannot  be  quite  certain 
which  of  the  two  Judes,  or  Judases,  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament  is  here  referred  to.  He  is  called  the 
brother  of  James.  But  of  which  James?  The  probabili' 
ties  are  that  it  was  the  James  who  was  a  brother  of  Jesus, 
which  would  make  this  Jude  Jesus'  brother.  There  are 
strong  reasons,  however,  for  believing  that  the  book  was 
not  actually  written  by  Jude  (by  either  Jude)  or  by  any 
one  of  their  generation,  but  by  an  unknown  writer  as  late 


l6o  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

as  lOO  or  even  130  (Harnack),  who,  in  accordance  with  a 
wide-spread  practice  of  the  time,  sent  out  this  production 
under  a  better  known  name  than  his  own,  in  order  to  give 
it  greater  authority.  The  place  of  composition  is  un- 
known. It  may  have  been  Palestine.  The  right  of  the 
Epistle  to  a  place  in  the  Canon  has  been  much  questioned  ; 
it  was  admitted  in  the  fourth  century  among  other  dis- 
puted works. 

The  Book  of  Revelation. — This  book  is  often  called, 
from  its  name  in  Greek,  the  Apocalypse^  which  means  a 
revelation,  or  an  uncovering.  The  title  given  it  in  our 
common  English  version  is, "  The  Revelation  of  St.  John 
the  Divine ;  "  but  the  words  *'  the  Divine  "  are  not  found 
in  any  old  manuscript.  The  early  Church  generally  re- 
garded the  book  as  the  production  of  John,  the  disciple 
and  companion  of  Christ.  A  few,  however,  doubted,  and 
there  have  been  many  important  doubters  since.  Erasmus, 
the  great  scholar  of  the  Reformation,  was  one.  Luther 
thought  the  book  "  neither  apostolic  nor  prophetic,"  and 
declared  that  he  "■  could  find  no  reason  for  believing  that 
it  was  set  forth  by  the  Holy  Spirit."  ^  Zwingli  pro- 
nounced it  **not  a  biblical  book,"  that  is,  not  properly 
belonging  in  the  Canon.  Many  eminent  modern  scholars 
have  taken  the  same  ground.  Upon  one  point  scholars 
have  come  to  be  essentially  agreed ;  namely,  that  if 
the  Apostle  John  wrote  the  fourth  Gospel,  he  did  not 
write  the  Revelation :  both  cannot  be  from  the  same 
author. 

It  has  been  generally  maintained  that  the  date  of  the 
Revelation  can  be  easily  and  accurately  fixed.  From 
chap,  xi.,  verses  1-14,  we  learn  that  the  Temple  was  still 

*  Preface  to  the  Revelation,  1522. 


NON-PAULINE  EPISTLES  AND  THE  REVELATION.     l6l 

Standing  at  the  time  when  the  author  wrote ;  hence  he 
must  have  written  as  early  as  70  A.D.,  which  was  the  year 
in  which  that  edifice  was  destroyed.  Still  further,  in  chap, 
xvii.,  verse  10,  we  read  :  **And  there  are  seven  kings  :  five 
are  fallen,  and  one  w,  and  the  other  is  not  yet  come;" 
which  is  taken  to  mean  that  when  the  writer  lived,  five 
emperors  of  Rome  had  fallen,  the  sixth  was  reigning,  and 
the  other  had  not  yet  come  on  the  stage.  Now  the  sixth 
emperor  of  Rome,  it  is  afifirmed,  was  Galba,  who  reigned 
only  seven  months,  from  June,  68  A.D.,  to  January,  69. 
Hence  the  date  of  the  book  must  fall  within  that  short 
space  of  time. 

All  this  seems  very  clear  and  conclusive,  and  the  date 
68  or  69  A.D.  is  the  one  that  is  generally  adopted.  And 
yet,  when  we  look  into  matters  closely,  we  find  some  very 
serious  difficulties  standing  in  the  way  of  this  date,  if  not 
of  any  single  date.  Indeed,  with  increasing  study  of  the 
book,  the  evidence  grows  that  it  is  a  compilation,  or  at 
least  that  it  underwent  several  revisions,  the  last  one  far 
on  in  the  second  century. 

The  theory  which  now  seems  likely  to  supersede  all 
others  is  one  given  to  the  world  in  1886  by  Professor 
Harnack  and  Eberhard  Vischer  of  Germany,  which  claims 
that  the  work  is  a  Jewish  apocalypse  with  Christian  inter- 
polations, set  in  a  Christian  frame.  It  is  believed  that  no 
other  theory  removes  so  many  difficulties  as  this,  or  makes 
the  interpretation  of  the  book  so  simple  and  intelligible. 
It  accounts  for  the  conflicting  Judaic  and  Christian  ele- 
ments in  the  book,  which  hitherto  have  been  so  puzzling ; 
as  it  does  also  for  the  fact  that  the  different  parts  give  so 
plain  evidence  of  different  dates.  Says  Dr.  Martineau : 
*'  The  Judaic  groundwork  owes  part  of  its  text  to  the 
zealot  period  of  the  first  Jewish  war,  A.D.  66-70,  and 
II 


1 62  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

part  to  a  time  about  eight  years  later.  The  Christianized 
recension  shows  the  hand  of  two  editors — one,  in  Domi- 
tian's  time,  responsible  for  all  the  twenty-nine  passages 
speaking  about  *'the  Lamb;"  the  other,  belonging  to 
Hadrian's  reign,  answerable  for  the  letters  to  the  churches, 
as  well  as  for  the  introduction  and  conclusion  of  the 
whole  work.  It  cannot,  therefore,  have  been  issued  before 
136  A.D.,  and  is  altogether  post-apostolic." 

Certain  it  is,  the  Book  of  Revelation  is  only  one  of  a 
great  number  of  apocalypses  that  were  produced  during 
the  two  centuries  before  and  the  two  after  Christ.  One 
Jewish  apocalypse,  in  many  respects  similar  to  this, 
we  have  in  the  Old  Testament  ;  namely,  the  Book  of 
Daniel,  written  about  165  B.C.  Others  knocked  for  ad- 
mission, some  to  the  Old  Testament  and  some  to  the 
New,  but  none  were  allowed  to  enter  except  these. 

It  is  probably  not  too  strong  to  say  that  nothing  in  the 
Bible,  not  even  the  imprecatory  Psalms,  or  the  cruelties 
of  Joshua  or  the  Judges,  is  further  from  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  than  some  things  found  in  this  strange  book.  The 
portrait  of  the  unpitying,  destroying,  vengeance-taking 
Christ  drawn  here,  far  better  suits  a  Nero  or  a  Satan. 
Writes  Martineau  :  "  How  strange  that  we  should  ever 
have  thought  it  possible  for  a  personal  attendant  on  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  to  write  or  edit  a  book  mixing  up  fierce 
Messianic  conflicts,  in  which,  with  the  sword,  the  gory 
garment,  the  blasting  flame,  the  rod  of  iron,  as  his  em- 
blems, he  leads  the  war-march,  and  treads  the  wine-press 
of  the  wrath  of  God  till  the  deluge  of  blood  rises  to 
the  horses'  bits,  with  the  speculative  Christology  of  the 
second  century,  without  a  memory  of  his  life,  a  feature 
of  his  look,  a  word  from  his  voice,  or  a  glance  back 
at  the  hillsides  of  Galilee,  the  courts  of  Jerusalem,  the 


NON-PAULINE  EPISTLES  AND  THE  REVELATION.     163 

road  to  Bethany,  on  which  his  image  must  be  forever 
seen."  ' 

'  "  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,"  p.  227.  For  further  information 
regarding  the  New  Testament  books  considered  in  this  chapter  and  the  pre- 
ceding, see  Davidson's,  Bleek's,  and  Bernhard  Weiss'  "  New  Testament 
Introductions  ";  Introductions  to  the  various  books,  in  the  Protestant  Com- 
mentary ;  articles  in  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica "  on  Paul  and  the 
different  New  Testament  books  ;  Martineau's  "  Seat  of  Authority  in  Reli- 
gion," pp.  217-285  ;  Pfleiderer's  "Paulinism,"  and  his  Hibbert  "  Lectures 
(1885)  on  the  Influence  of  Paul";  Renan's  "  The  Apostles"  and  "St. 
Paul";  "Bible  for  Learners,"  vol.  iii.;  Chadwick's  "Bible  of  To-day," 
lees.  vi.  and  vii. ;  Matthew  Arnold's  "  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism  " ;  Bacon's 
"Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,"  1900;  "A  Biblical  Introduction: 
The  New  Testament,"  by  W.  F.  Adeney,  1899;  articles  on  the  various 
N.  T.  books  in  Hastings'  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  "  and  the  "  Encyclopsedia 
Biblica";  "Die  Chronologie  der  Altchristlichen  Litteratur  bis  Eusebius; 
Van  Adolph  Hamack.  Erster  Band,  die  Chronologie  der  Litteratur  bis 
Irenaeus."     Leipzig,  1897. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

EXCLUDED    LITERATURE. 

We  have  seen  how  the  various  books  of  the  Bible  came 
to  be  written.  We  must  now  inquire  how  and  when  they 
were  first  thought  of  as  writings  of  supernatural  wisdom, 
and  as  such  were  gathered  together  to  form  sacred  books 
— first  the  Old  Testament,  and  then  the  New. 

It  is  natural  to  ask,  Why  were  just  these  writings  and 
no  others  included  in  our  Canon  ?  Were  not  others  pro- 
duced by  the  Jewish  people  during  the  thousand  years  of 
the  Bible's  growth  ?  And  if  so,  why  do  we  have  none  of 
them  in  our  sacred  volume  ? 

Old  Testament  Lost  Books. — We  find,  on  examina- 
tion, that  no  fewer  than  sixteen  books  are  wanting  from 
the  Old  Testament  which  seemingly  ought  to  be  there; 
at  least  which  are  referred  to  in  various  places  in  the 
Bible  as  if  they  were  equally  authoritative  with  books 
which  are  included  in  the  Canon.  So  far  as  we  know, 
all  of  these  sixteen  books,  with  one  exception,  are  lost. 
Their  names  are  as  follows: 

1.  The  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord  (referred  to  in 
Num.  xxi.  14). 

2.  The  Book  of  Jasher  (Josh.  x.  13,  and  2  Sam.  i.  18). 

3.  The  Book  of  the  Manner  of  the  Kingdom,  written 
by  Samuel  (i  Sam.  x.  25). 

4.  The  Books  of  Nathan  and  Gad  concerning  King 
David  (i  Chron.  xxix.  29). 


EXCLUDED  LITERATURE.  165 

5.  The  Book  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon  (i  Kings  xi.  41). 

6.  The  Book  of  Enoch  ^  (referred  to  in  Jude  14,  15). 

7.  The  Books  of  Nathan,  Ahijah,  and  Iddo  concerning 
King  Solomon  (2  Chron.  ix.  29). 

8.  Solomon's  Songs,  Parables,  and  Treatises  on  Natural 
History  (i  Kings  iv.  32,  seq.^. 

9.  The  Book  of  Shemaiah  concerning  King  Rehoboam 
(2  Chron.  xii.  15). 

10.  The  Book  of  Jehu  concerning  Jehoshaphat  (2 
Chron.  xx.  34). 

11.  The  Book  of  Isaiah  concerning  King  Uzziah  (2 
Chron.  xxvi.  22). 

12.  The  Words  of  the  Seers  to  King  Manasseh  (2 
Chron.  xxxiii.  18,  19). 

13.  The  Book  of  Lamentations  over  King  Josiah  (2 
Chron.  xxxv.  25). 

14.  The  Volume  of  Jeremiah  burned  by  Jehudi  (Jer. 
xxxvi.  2, 6,  23). 

15.  The  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah  (mentioned 
repeatedly  in  Kings). 

16.  The  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Israel  (mentioned 
repeatedly  in  Kings). 

Why  were  these  books  allowed  to  perish  ?  Why  were 
they  left  out  from  the  Old  Testament?  If  scripture 
writers  themselves  referred  to  them  as  of  equal  authority 
with  their  own  writings,  how  can  a  line  be  drawn  between 
them  and  genuine  scripture  ?  Indeed,  what  is  it  that 
constitutes  genuine  scripture  ? 

But  these  sixteen  books  are  not  all  that  we  get  traces  of. 

Extant   Books. — A  second  list  of  eighteen  writings, 


^  This  Book  of  Enoch  is  extant  entire  in  an  Ethiopia  version,  and  in  part 
in  a  Greek  version. 


1 66  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

now  extant,  generally  known  as  the  Old  Testament 
"  pseudepigraphal "  books,  must  also  be  noticed.  I  give 
their  names  (the  list  is  a  growing  one),  together  with  the 
language  in  which  each  is  preserved  : 

1.  The  Testament  of  Solomon  (Greek). 

2.  The  History  of  Asenath,  Joseph's  wife  (Latin). 

3.  The  Apocalypse  of  Baruch  (Syriac). 

4.  The  Book  of  Elias  the  Prophet.^ 

5.  The  Book  of  the  Secrets  of  Enoch  (Sclavonic).^ 

6.  The  Third  Book  of  Esdras  (Greek  and  Latin). 

7.  The  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras  (Latin,  Arabic,  and 
Ethiopic). 

8.  The  Ascension  of  Isaiah  (Ethiopic). 

9.  The  Book  Jubilees,  **  Little  Genesis,"  (Ethiopic). 

10.  The  Testament  of  Job  (Greek). 

II  and  12.  The  Third  and  Fourth  Books  of  Maccabees 
(Greek). 

13.  The  Fifth  Book  of  Maccabees  (Arabic  and  Syriac). 

14.  The  Assumption  of  Moses.^ 

15.  The  Preaching  of  Noah  to  the  Antediluvians, 
according  to  the  Sibylline  Oracles.* 

16.  The  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs  (Greek). 

17.  The  Psalter  of  Solomon  (Greek). 

18.  The  Testament  of  Adam  (Greek,  Syriac,  and  Latin). 
According  to  our  standards  to-day,  the  value  of  these 

books  is  not  great.  Some  of  them,  however,  we  know 
exerted   a  good   deal   of  influence  upon    early  Christian 

1  See  Fabricius,  Codex  Pseudepigr.  Veteris  Testamenti,  I.  1070. 

*  First  made  known  to  Western  Europe  in  1896  through  a  translation  by 
W.  R.  Morrill,  edited  with  Notes  and  Introduction  by  R.  H.  Charles. 
Though  in  some  respects  similar  to  the  Book  of  Enoch  mentioned  on  the 
preceding  page,  it  is  not  the  same  work. 

»  See  Fabricius,  Cod.  Pseudepigr.  V.  T,  I.  825.  ♦  Ibid.^  I.  230. 


EXCLUDED  LITERATURE.  1 6/ 

thought,  and  were  held  in  high  esteem  even  by  scholars 
like  Origen. 

The  Old  Testament  Apocrypha. — Of  much  higher 
value  is  a  third  list,  of  fourteen  books,  known  as  the  Old 
Testament  Apocrypha.     These  are : 

1.  I  Esdras. 

2.  2  Esdras. 

3.  Tobit. 

4.  Judith. 

5.  The  rest  of  the  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Esther, 
which  are  found  neither  in  the  Hebrew  nor  the  Chaldee. 

6.  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon. 

7.  Ecclesiasticus,  or  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  Son  of 
Sirach. 

8.  Baruch. 

9.  The  Song  of  the  Three  Holy  Children. 

10.  The  History  of  Susanna. 

11.  The  History  of  the  Destruction  of  Bel  and  the 
Dragon. 

12.  The  Prayer  of  Manasseh,  King  of  Judah. 

13.  I  Maccabees. 

14.  2  Maccabees. 

These  Old  Testament  apocryphal  books  are  all  extant, 
and  are  more  or  less  familiar  to  the  public.  They  are 
found  in  the  Septuagint,  the  translation  of  the  Old 
Testament  into  Greek,  made  a  century  or  two  before 
Christ.^  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  claims  that  they 
are  true  scripture,  and  prints  them  as  a  part  of  her  Bible. 
Protestants,  however,  take  the  responsibility  of  casting 

'  The  early  Christians  used  them  as  true  scripture.  Says  Emil  Schurer  : 
"The  church  of  the  first  three  centuries  made  no  essential  diflFerence 
between  the  writings  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  and  the  so-called  Apocrypha " 
(Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,  art.  "  Apocrypha"). 


1 68  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

them  out ;  though  now  and  then  a  Protestant  Bible 
(generally  a  large  one  for  family  or  pulpit  use)  falls  into 
our  hands  which  contains  them.  Whether  these  fourteen 
apocryphal  books  ought  to  be  in  the  Bible  or  not  is  a 
question  upon  which  scholars  have  never  been  agreed, 
and  upon  which  the  Christian  world  to-day  is  about 
evenly  divided.  That  some  of  them  are  superior  not 
only  as  literature,  but  in  respect  to  their  moral  and  reli- 
gious teachings,  to  several  of  the  books  that  are  now  in 
the  Bible,  is  certain.  For  example,  no  unprejudiced  mind 
can  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  place  the  religious  value  of 
the  apocryphal  Wisdom  of  Solomon  or  Ecclesiasticus 
above  that  of  the  canonical  Esther  or  Ecclesiastes. 

Scriptures  Outside  of  the  New  Testament  Canon. — 
Passing  now  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New,  what 
do  we  find?  Are  the  books  that  appear  in  our  New 
Testament  Canon  all  that  were  written  in  connection  with 
the  origin  of  the  Christian  movement  ?  Or,  if  others  were 
written,  how  many  others?  And  was  there  any  clear  line 
by  which  the  two  classes  were  separated  ? 

The  number  of  New  Testament  apocryphal  books  or 
fragments  that  we  know  to  have  existed  during  the  early 
centuries  is  very  large.  The  names  of  not  fewer  than 
one  hundred  and  nine  such  works  (forty-one  extant  and 
sixty-eight  lost)  are  in  our  possession. 

The  Forty-one  Extant  Books. — A  translation  into 
English  of  the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  forty-one  New 
Testament  apocryphal  writings  that  are  extant  is  often 
seen  printed  in  a  volume,  and  circulated  under  the  title 
of  the  New  Testament  Apocrypha.  A  partial  list  of 
these  writings  (with  the  languages  in  which  they  are  pre- 
served) is  as  follows : 

The  Protevangelium  of  James  (Greek  and  Latin). 


EXCLUDED   LITERATURE.  1 69 

The  Gospel  of  Thomas  (Greek  and  Latin). 

The  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  (Arabic  and  Latin). 

The  Gospel  of  Nicodemus  (Greek  and  Latin). 

The  Narrative  of  Joseph  of  Arimathaea  (Greek). 

The  Acts  of  Pilate  (Greek  and  Latin). 

The  General  Epistle  of  Barnabas  (Greek). 

The  First  and  Second  Epistles  of  Clement  (Greek). 

The  Apostolic  Constitutions  (Greek,  Ethiopic,  and 
Coptic). 

The  First  and  Second  Books  of  Hermas  (Greek  and 
Latin). 

The  Sixty-eight  Lost  Books. — We  have  knowledge 
of  these  lost  writings  through  quotations  from  them,  or 
references  to  them,  found  in  Christian  authors  of  the 
first  four  centuries.  The  names  of  a  few  of  these,  with 
the  writers  who  mention  them,  are  as  follows : 

The  Acts  of  Andrew  (mentioned  by  Eusebius,  Epi- 
phanius,  and  Gelasius). 

The  Gospel  according  to  the  Twelve  Apostles  (Origen, 
Ambrose,  and  Jerome). 

The  Gospel  of  Barnabas  (Gelasius). 

The  Gospel  of  Basilides  (Origen,  Ambrose,  and  Jerome). 

The  Gospel  according  to  the  Egyptians  (Origen, 
Jerome,  Epiphanius,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria). 

The  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  (Hegesippus, 
Eusebius,  Origen,  Jerome,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria). 

The  Gospel  of  Matthias  (Origen,  Ambrose,  Eusebius, 
and  Jerome). 

The  Preaching  of  Peter  (Clement  of  Alexandria,  Euse- 
bius, Jerome,  et.  al.). 

The  Acts  of  John  (Eusebius,  Athanasius,  Augustine). 

The  Gospel  of  Peter  (Eusebius,  Tertullian,  Origen, 
Jerome). 


170  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

The  Revelation  of  Peter  (Clement  of  Alexandria,  Euse- 
bius,  Jerome,  et.  al.).'^ 

These  one  hundred  and  nine  apocryphal  books  (lost  and 
extant)  may  be  divided  into  two  classes.  One  class  con- 
sists of  works  that  have  never  been  regarded  as  inspired 
by  any  sect  or  part  of  the  Christian  Church.  These  were 
generally  written  late — in  most  cases  after  the  second 
century.  The  other  class  consists  of  books  which  were 
looked  upon  by  larger  or  smaller  groups  of  churches  and 
religious  teachers  as  inspired,  and  were  employed  by  them 
as  sacred  Scripture.  Many  of  these  date  at  least  as  far 
back  as  the  second  century  ;  that  is  to  say,  nearly  or  quite 
as  early  as  a  number  of  the  books  which  are  included  in 
our  New  Testament  Canon.  Many  of  them,  too,  were 
read  extensively  in  the  churches  for  two  or  three  cen- 
turies, and  were  looked  upon  by  elders,  bishops,  and  emi- 
nent Church  fathers  as  inspired.  In  a  preceding  chapter 
I  have  mentioned  at  least  three  Gospels  which  were  thus 
widely  employed  as  scripture  among  the  early  churches ; 
namely,  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  (called  also 
the  Gospel  of  the  Ebionites  or  of  the  Nazarenes),  the 
Gospel  of  the  Egyptians,  and  the  Gospel  of  the  Lord  (or 
Marcion's  Gospel).  But  not  one  of  these  has  a  place 
to-day  in  our  Christian  Scriptures,  though  they  probably 
date  earlier  than  most,  if  not  all,  of  our  present  New 
Testament  Gospels.  Other  writings  were  held  in  equally 
high  esteem.  The  first  Epistle  of  Clement  was  among 
the  number.  This  Epistle  was  read  in  many  churches ; 
it  is  quoted  in  the  same  manner  as  scriptures  by  Ire- 
naeus,  and  it  is  found  in  the  Codex  Alexandrinus.     The 


'  Fragments  of  this  work  and  the  preceding,  in  Greek,  have  very  recently 
been  discovered,  in  connection  with  a  Greek  MS.  of  the  Book  of  Enoch. 


EXCLUDED  LITERATURE.  17I 

Shepherd  of  Hermas  was  also  read  in  the  churches  very 
generally ;  it  is  mentioned  as  inspired  by  Irenaeus,  Clem- 
ent of  Alexandria,  and  Origen,  and  it  is  found  in  the 
Codex  Sinaiticus.  Similar  respect  was  paid  to  the  Epis- 
tles of  Polycarp  and  Barnabas,  the  Apostolic  Canons,  the 
Apostolic  Constitutions;  and  various  liturgies  ascribed 
to  St.  Peter,  St.  Mark,  etc.  (published  by  Fabricius  in  his 
Codex  Apocryphus  Novi  Testamenti)  are  considered  by 
such  scholars  as  Whiston  and  Grabe  as  of  equal  authority 
with  any  of  the  genuine  apostolic  compositions.^ 

Now  why  have  all  these  books  been  left  out  of  our 
New  Testament  ?  Who  was  authorized  to  omit  them  ? 
If  the  clear  stamp  of  the  Divine  was  upon  the  books 
which  found  a  place  in  the  Canon,  but  not  upon  these,  it 
seems  strange  that  so  many  churches  and  eminent  Chris- 
tian teachers  were  unable  to  distinguish  the  difference. 
Is  it  said  that  these  were  omitted  because  they  were  not 
written  by  apostles?  Some  of  our  New  Testament 
books  also  were  not  written  by  apostles.  Is  it  said  they 
were  left  out  because  they  were  seen  to  be  wanting  in  re- 
ligious value  ?  This  test  would  doubtless  exclude  some, 
but  it  would  hardly  shut  out  others.  In  ethical  and 
spiritual  quality  the  excluded  Marcion's  Gospel  or  Shep- 

*  See  Whiston's  "  Primitive  Christianity"  and  Grabe's  "  Spicilegium." 
On  the  apocryphal  and  pseudepigraphal  literature  connected  with  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  see  articles  "  Apocrypha"  and  "  Apocalyptic  Litera- 
ture "  in  the  Encylopsedia  Britannica  ;  *' Apocrypha"  in  McClintock  and 
Strong's  Cyclopaedia  ;  "  Apocrypha  "  and  "  Pseudepigrapha  "  in  the  Schaff- 
Herzog  Encylopaedia  ;  Bissell's  "  The  Apocrypha  of  the  Old  Testament  ; " 
Fabricius'  "Codex  Pseudepigraphus  Veteris  Testamenti,"  and  "Codex 
Apocryphus  Novi  Testamenti  ;  "  Tischendorf's  "  Acta  Apostolorum  Apoc- 
rypha," and  "  Evangelia  Apocrypha;"  translations  of  New  Testament 
Apocrypha  into  English,  by  B.  Harris  Cowper,  and  by  Walker,  in  the 
"Ante-Nicene  Library." 


1/2  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

herd   of  Hermas   is  certainly  superior  to  the  included 
Epistle  of  Jude,  or  even  the  Revelation. 

Here,  then,  is  the  answer  that  we  find  to  our  question, 
Are  the  writings  which  we  have  bound  together  in  our 
Old  and  New  Testaments  all  that  were  produced  by  the 
Jewish  people  during  the  thousand  years  of  the  Bible's 
growth?  We  find  comirrg  into  existence,  side  by  side 
with  the  groups  of  books  which  form  both  of  our  Testa- 
ments, other  groups  which  have  been  left  outside.  Nor 
does  there  appear  any  clear  line  of  division  between  those 
excluded  and  those  included.  If  the  non-canonical  books 
came  into  existence  naturally,  so  did  the  canonical.  If 
the  non-canonical  books  do  not  claim  to  be  miraculously 
inspired,  the  same  is  true  of  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  canon- 
ical. If  when  the  non-canonical  books  were  written  they 
were  not  regarded  as  sacred  Scripture,  it  is  also  true  that 
when  the  canonical  books  were  written  they  were  gener- 
ally not  regarded  as  sacred  Scripture :  the  idea  of  their 
sacredness  grew  up  later,  and  in  most  cases  much  later. 
Nor  is  the  ethical  or  the  religious  test  one  that  is  more 
than  in  part  applicable,  for  the  superior  ethics  and  the 
superior  religion  are  sometimes  on  the  side  of  the  non- 
canonical  or  excluded  books. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL  BOOKS. 

All  the  classes  of  writings  named  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  which  came  into  being  in  connection  with  later 
Judaism  and  early  Christianity,  and  which  knocked  for 
entrance  into  the  Bible  but  were  refused,  are  full  of  inter- 
est and  significance.  All  have  light  to  throw  upon  the 
times  which  produced  them,  upon  the  thoughts  which  were 
uppermost  in  the  minds  of  men  during  those  ages,  and 
especially  upon  the  causes  which  conspired  to  create  the 
Christian  movement.  It  would  be  interesting,  if  space  per- 
mitted, to  take  up  each  class  in  turn,  and  find  out  the 
nature  and  character  of  the  various  books  that  it  contains 
There  is  one  class,  however,  which  must  not  be  passed  by. 
It  is  that  which  I  have  called  the  *'  Old  Testament 
Apocrypha."  (See  p.  167.) 

The  word  Apocrypha  means  "  hidden  things."  Probably 
its  earliest  use  was  in  connection  with  religious  books 
which  were  supposed  to  contain  hidden  mysteries.  Later 
it  was  applied  to  books  whose  origin  was  hidden  or  un- 
known. From  this  it  came  in  time  to  be  degraded  and 
given  the  bad  meaning  of  spurious.  This  is  unfortunate, 
for  it  tends  to  create  a  prejudice  against  the  whole  body 
of  literature  known  as  Apocryphal,  when  as  a  fact  some  of 
that  literature  is  of  a  high  type  and  quite  worthy  the 
attention  of  all  thoughtful  minds. 

The  Historic  Gap  between  the  Two  Testaments.  — 
Without  the  Old  Testament  Apocryphal  books  there  would 


174  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE, 

be  a  wide  historic  gap  or  blank  between  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  which  we  could  not  bridge  or  fill. 

The  old  idea  has  been  that  Malachi,  the  prophecy  which 
stands  last  in  the  Old  Testament,  was  the  latest  written 
book  of  that  Testament,  and  that  its  date  is  397  B.C.  If 
this  were  the  case,  and  if  we  possessed  none  of  the  writings 
called  Apocryphal,  there  would  be  an  interval  or  gap  of 
four  and  a  half  centuries — "silent  centuries"  they  have 
been  called  —  between  the  close  of  one  Testament  and  the 
beginning  of  the  other.  As  a  fact, 'the  date  which  has  been 
ascribed  to  Malachi,  is  probably  not  very  far  wrong  (scholars 
now  are  disposed  to  regard  the  true  date  as  about 
420  B.C.) ;  but  we  now  know  that  Malachi  was  by  no  means 
the  latest  Old  Testament  writing.  Probably  for  more  than 
250  years  after  Malachi's  day  the  production  of  Old  Testa- 
ment literature  continued.  Within  these  250  years  fall  the 
Book  of  Joel,  the  Books  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and 
Numbers  (in  their  present  completed  form),  the  Song  of 
Solomon,  Nehemiah  in  part,  i  and  2  Chronicles,  Ecclesias- 
tes,  Esther,  Daniel,  and  the  Books  of  Proverbs  and  Psalms 
as  finally  compiled.  Daniel  almost  certainly  dates  as  late 
as  165  B.C.;  while  the  Psalter  probably  was  not  closed 
earlier  than  150  B.C.  Thus  we  find  that  the  gap  of 
**  silent  centuries  "  is  really  reduced  more  than  one  half  by 
the  Old  Testament  literature  itself,  when  we  come  to 
understand  the  true  time  of  origin  of  that  literature.  Nor 
is  this  all.  As  soon  as  the  door  of  the  Old  Testament 
closes,  that  of  the  Apocryphal  literature  opens;  indeed 
this  opens  even  before  the  other  is  shut ;  and  through  it 
there  comes  a  long  succession  of  other  writings  appearing 
at  uncertain  intervals  right  on  down  to  New  Testament 
times.  By  means  of  knowledge  gained  from  these,  the 
supposed  gap  or  blank  is  entirely  removed;  and   it  is  pro- 


THE   OLD    TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL   BOOKS.        1/5 

bably  quite  within  the  truth  to  say  that  there  are  no 
centuries  of  Jewish  history  about  which  we  know  more 
than  those  which  immediately  precede  the  birth  of 
Christianity. 

A  Great  Age.  —  It  has  been  supposed  that  this  **  period 
between  the  Testaments  "  was  one  of  slight  historic  impor- 
tance, a  stagnant  time,  when  little  or  nothing  of  moment 
was  transpiring  in  the  world,  or  at  least  in  Palestine.  But 
nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  The  period  was 
one  of  the  great  ages  of  the  world.  Hardly  any  in  history 
has  witnessed  more  important  events.  In  the  career  of 
the  Jewish  people  it  was  a  crisis  time.  As  has  been  truly 
said,  during  this  period  "  the  empire  of  the  world  was 
changed  from  East  to  West,  and  the  whole  face  of  Jewish 
society  was  revolutionized.  How  marvellously  different 
from  the  Persian  ascendency  which  pervades  the  latest 
pages  of  the  Old  Testament  is  the  scene  presented  when 
we  open  the  first  pages  of  the  New  Testament !  By  some 
means  nothing  less  than  a  universal  transformation  has 
ensued.  Judea  is  a  province  of  an  empire  of  which  Daniel 
did  not  so  much  as  dream.  Palestine  is  studded  through- 
out with  Greek  cities  bearing  Greek  names.  The  Greek 
language  has  come  into  wide-spread  use  on  every  hand. 
Instead  of  the  age-long  tendency  of  the  Jews  to  idolatry, 
monotheism  has  become  the  passionate  faith  of  all  Jewry. 
There  is  a  universal  belief  among  them  that  the  Messiah 
will  come,  and  the  most  religious  part  of  the  nation  is 
firmly  convinced  of  a  continuance  of  human  life  beyond 
the  grave.  Jewish  traders  are  settled  in  all  the  important 
cities  of  the  Roman  world  around  the  Mediterranean  Sea, 
and  in  such  numbers  that  there  are  as  many  Jews  outside 
as  inside  the  limits  of  the  Holy  Land.  In  every  Jewish 
city  there  is  a  synagogue,  an  institution  of  which  the  Old 


1/6  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Testament  is  ignorant,  an  institution  which  is  the  centre  of 
the  social  and  religious  life  of  the  people,  having  become 
more  important  than  the  temple  itself.  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees,  Essenes  and  Herodians  move  on  the  narrow 
stage  of  Judaism;  and  of  the  origin  of  these  sects  we  glean 
no  hint  in  the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament.  How  did  all 
this  come  to  be?  Is  there  no  light  to  be  thrown  on  the 
screen  of  history,  by  which  students  may  be  enabled  to 
answer  the  questions  which  are  naturally  aroused  by  these 
changes?" 

The  Value  of  the  Apocryphal  Writings.  —  The  truth 
is  that  but  for  the  Apocrypha  these  centuries  would  remain 
for  us  almost  blank;  but  in  these  neglected  books  we  have 
pictures  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Jews  during  this  transitional 
period.  Some  of  these  books  originated  under  the  Persian 
ascendency  and  portray  life  in  exile ;  some  of  them  were 
produced  in  Palestine,  and  give  the  Hfe  and  thought  of 
the  home-country;  some  were  written  in  Egypt,  and  show 
the  influence  of  Greek  thought  upon  Jewish  minds  there. 
Thus  in  the  Apocryphal  writings  we  hear  the  voice  not 
alone  of  the  Judaism  of  Palestine  but  perhaps  even  more 
still  of  that  wider  Judaism  which  was  penetrating  all  the 
countries  round  about,  through  the  Jews  of  the  "  Disper- 
sion." These  Jews  outside  of  Palestine  for  the  most  part 
clung  tenaciously  to  their  own  faith,  kept  in  sympathetic 
relations  with  the  home-land,  and  as  often  as  possible  re- 
visited it.  As  time  went  on  their  influence  came  to  be 
strong  upon  Palestinian  Judaism  itself;  and  of  course  that 
influence  was  for  breadth,  for  an  ever-widening  liberality 
of  spirit,  for  greater  sympathy  toward  the  religious  ideas 
of  other  peoples.  To  some  extent  the  Apocryphal  books 
were  the  product  of  these  non-Palestinian  Jews,  and  to  a 
very  large  degree  they  reflect  their  spirit  and  views. 


THE   OLD    TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL   BOOKS.       1 77 

All  these  influences  were  silently  preparing  the  way  for 
the  rise  of  a  movement  in  Palestine  like  that  inaugurated 
by  Jesus  and  Paul,  —  a  movement,  which,  when  it  came, 
would  have  for  its  object  the  breaking  down  of  the  walls 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  and  the  establishment  of  a  uni- 
versal faith  founded  upon  those  ethical  and  spiritual 
elements  which  know  no  bounds  of  nation  or  race. 

The  Close  Relation  of  Christianity  to  Judaism. — 
Thus  we  discover  that  the  Christian  movement  when  it 
arose  was  not  a  strange  or  unaccountable  or  unrelated  thing. 
It  was  simply  Judaism  carried  forward  to  another  stage  of 
its  development, —  a  stage  of  development  induced  and 
necessitated  by  its  new  and  broader  outlook,  its  world 
relations.  Instead  of  being  a  mystery  or  a  miracle,  the 
new  Christianity  was  an  effect  springing  from  fully  ade- 
quate and  plainly  discoverable  causes.  Its  rise  was  as 
natural  as  the  rise  of  Stoicism  in  Greece,  or  Buddhism  in 
India,  or  of  the  Papacy  in  the  middle  ages,  or  of  Liberal 
Christianity  in  our  day.  Jesus  was  as  much  a  child  of  his 
age  as  was  Isaiah,  or  Socrates,  or  Augustine,  or  John 
Wesley.  The  Christian  movement  came  from  God,  but  it 
came  not  like  lightning  out  of  a  clear  sky,  but  through 
those  divine  forces  which  had  long  been  working  among 
the  Jewish  people  (shall  we  not  say  the  Greek  also })  and 
which  at  last  culminated  and  found  a  voice  in  Jesus.  All 
this  the  Apocryphal  books  help  us  to  understand,  as  with- 
out them  would  be  impossible. 

Such  being  the  significance  and  value  of  this  Apocry- 
phal literature,  we  cannot  wonder  that  the  Jewish  people  in 
Palestine  prized  and  made  much  use  of  it;  nor  that  the 
Jews  outside  of  Palestine  virtually  adopted  it  as  a  part  of 
their  sacred  scriptures, —  as  we  see  by  the  fact  that  when  a 
century  or  two  before  Christ  the  Old  Testament  was  trans- 
12 


178  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

lated  into  Greek  for  the  use  of  these  outside  Jews,  the 
translation  (the  Septuagint)  was  made  to  include  the  Apo- 
cryphal books.^  Nor  can  we  wonder  that  these  Apocryphal 
writings  were  widely  read  by  the  early  Christian  Church, 
and  quoted  by  the  early  Christian  Theologians  as  if  they 
were  of  equal  authority  with  the  Old  Testament ;  that  they 
continued  to  be  virtually  a  part  of  the  Christian  biblical 
canon  down  to  modern  times ;  that  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
scripture  canon  they  still  have  a  place;  that  Luther's  Bible 
contained  a  majority  of  them  ;  that  the  leading  translations 
and  revisions  of  our  Protestant  English  Bible  from  Cover- 
dale's  down  to  the  Authorized  Version  all  included  them ; 
and  that  the  scholars  who  gave  us  our  Revised  Version  re- 
vised these  Apocryphal  writings  with  the  rest,  although 
they  published  them  in  a  separate  volume. ^ 

The  Old  Testament  Apocryphal  books  are  fourteen  in 
number,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter.  It  will 
be  worth  our  while  to  take  them  up  one  by  one  and  give  a 
brief  glance  at  each.  Let  us  not  make  the  mistake,  how- 
ever, of  supposing  that  we  are  going  to  find  all  of  equal 
value.  As  a  fact  they  vary  greatly  in  quality  and  worth. 
The  order  in  which  they  have  been  given  (and  in  which 
they  usually  appear)  is  not  chronological,  nor  does  there 

1  The  Septuagint,  including  the  Apocrypha,  may  very  truly  be  called  the 
Bible  of  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion.  Part  of  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha 
were  written  in  Hebrew  and  part  in  Greek.  None  of  them  were  ever  really 
admitted  to  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  Canon.  Probably  this  was  because 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70  a.d.  closed  the  door  of  that 
canon  against  any  further  entrances.  Many,  if  not  all  of  them  were  clearly 
on  the  way  to  canonization,  and  almost  certainly  would  have  reached  it  at  no 
distant  day  except  for  the  catastrophe  to  the  Jewish  Capital,  which  spread 
consternation  everywhere,  arrested  progress,  and  turned  the  eyes  of  every- 
body toward  the  past. 

*  The  Revised  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  appeared  in  the  year  1895. 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL  BOOKS.        1 79 

seem  to  be  any  reason  for  it ;  but  since  it  is  the  common 
order  it  will  be  best  for  us  to  follow  it. 

First  Esdras. — This  book  is  hardly  more  than  another 
form  of  the  Old  Testament  canonical  books  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  combined  into  one.  Those  books  were  origi- 
nally written  in  Hebrew.  In  this  work  we  have  the  main 
story  which  they  tell  re-told  by  a  later  writer  in  Greek, 
with  certain  transpositions  and  inversions  and  legendary 
additions.  The  work  does  not  add  anything  to  the  histori- 
cal material  which  the  older  books  give  us.  One  short  epi- 
sode, however,  is  very  interesting,  if  not  as  history,  at  least 
as  literature.  It  is  an  account  of  a  supposed  contest  of  wit 
in  the  presence  of  King  Darius  of  Persia.  The  King  has 
made  a  great  feast.  After  the  guests  have  departed,  three 
young  men  connected  with  the  royal  household  agree  each 
to  write  a  sentence  naming  what  he  believes  to  be  the 
strongest  thing  in  the  world,  and  place  the  result  under 
the  King's  pillow,  to  be  read  by  him  when  he  rises 
in  the  morning.  They  carry  out  their  agreement.  In  the 
morning  the  King  discovers  the  three  pieces  of  writing  and 
commands  that  they  shall  be  read  before  an  assembly  of 
his  courtiers  summoned  for  the  purpose.  The  first  writing 
maintains  that  wine  is  the  strongest  thing  in  the  world,  the 
second  that  the  King  is  strongest,  and  the  third  that  women 
are  stronger  than  the  other  two,  but  that  truth  is  strongest 
of  all.  Each  writer  states  his  reasons  for  his  claim,  and 
they  are  all  very  apt.  The  verdict  of  those  who  listen,  is 
that  the  third  writer  is  victor,  and  that  truth  is  stronger 
than  all  else.  It  is  here  that  we  find  that  magnificent 
sentence,  quite  worthy  of  a  place  beside  the  noblest 
utterances  in  the  Bible :  "  Truth  abideth,  and  is  strong 
forever;  she  liveth  and  conquereth  forevermore." 
We   are   told   that  when    the  company  heard  this,   they 


l80  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

shouted  and  said,  "  Great  is  Truth  and  strong  above  all 
things." 

Second  Esdras.  — This  book  is  of  much  later  date  than 
the  first,  indeed,  it  was  probably  written  after  the  birth  of 
Jesus,  and  may  be  regarded  as  representing  ideas  that  were 
widely  prevalent  in  Palestine  during  his  lifetime.  It  be- 
longs to  that  large  class  of  writings  known  as  Apocalyptic. 
We  have  already  obtained  glimpses  of  these  but  they  de- 
mand still  further  attention. 

During  the  two  centuries  preceding  and  the  two  following 
the  birth  of  Christ  no  writings  were  more  popular  among  the 
Jewish  people  than  Apocalypses,  and  none  exerted  a  greater 
influence  upon  late  Palestinian  Judaism  and  upon  early 
Christianity.  Quite  a  dozen  are  still  in  existence,  while  the 
titles  are  known  of  others  that  have  been  lost  (see  pp.  i66, 
168-169).  As  we  have  seen  (p.  162),  one  of  these  Apoc- 
alyptic writings  found  a  place  in  the  Old  Testament  (the 
Book  of  Daniel),  and  one  in  the  New  Testament  (Revela- 
tion). A  third  appears  here  among  the  Apocrypha  in  the 
form  of  this  book  of  2  Esdras.  A  fourth,  a  work  of  great 
influence  in  its  day  (the  Book  of  Enoch)  is  quoted  in  the 
Epistle  of  Jude,  but  it  did  not  succeed  in  obtaining  admis- 
sion to  either  Testament,  or  to  the  Old  Testament  Apocry- 
pha. 

The  general  characteristics  of  all  these  Apocalyptic  writ- 
ings are  much  the  same,  whether  the  writings  were  pro- 
duced before  the  Christian  movement  began  or  afterward, 
by  Jews  who  knew  nothing  of  Christianity,  or  by  Jews 
who  had  become  Christians.  They  are  a  kind  of  prophecy 
in  which  the  imagination  of  the  writer  usually  finds  wide 
scope.  They  indulge  much  in  symbolic  visions  of  the 
future.  Their  main  theme  is  the  final  triumph  of  good 
over  evil   and  of  the,  people  of  God  over  their  enemies. 


THE   OLD    TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL   BOOKS.       l8l 

They  are  often  fanatical  and  fantastical,  and  yet  they  com- 
mand our  respect  by  their  sincerity  and  passionate  earnest- 
ness. To  a  greater  or  less  degree  they  are  utterances  of 
pain,  of  anxiety,  of  faith  struggling  with  despair.  They 
are  cries  of  an  oppressed  and  suffering  people  longing  and 
waiting  and  praying  for  deliverance  from  their  foes, —  dis- 
appointed and  baffled  a  hundred  times  over,  yet  hoping 
against  hope,  and  keeping  their  faith  alive  by  painting  for 
themselves  pictures  of  miraculous  and  wonderful  ways  in 
which  they  dream  their  God  may  send  them  deliverance  at 
last.  Very  naturally  the  thought  of  a  great  Leader  in  the 
deliverance,  to  be  specially  raised  up  by  God  for  the  pur- 
pose, a  Messiah,  has  a  large  place  in  these  Apocalyptic 
writings.  It  is  from  these  writings  that  the  Messianic  idea 
comes  into  Christianity.  The  Jewish  Apocalypses  make 
no  reference  to  Jesus  ;  but  the  Christian  Apocalypses  por- 
tray Jesus  as  the  Messiah  ;  and  the  deliverance  which  they 
seek  is  that  of  the  Christian  Church  from  its  enemies. 

It  is  enough  to  say  of  this  Second  Book  of  Esdras  that 
it  is  a  good  representative  of  these  Apocalypses.  Though 
written  so  late  it  is  thoroughly  Jewish,  showing  no  sign  of 
being  influenced  by  Christianity.  "  It  is  a  wail  of  bitter 
disappointment  over  the  hard  fate  of  Judea;  but  the  per- 
suasion finally  prevails  that,  however  dark  the  present,  the 
Lord  cannot  withhold  his  mercy  forever,  and  the  appear- 
ance of  his  anointed  one  cannot  be  long  delayed." 

Tobit  and  Judith.  —  The  Old  Testament  contains  two 
books  which  very  properly  have  been  called  romances, — 
namely,  Ruth  and  Esther.  Among  the  Old  Testament 
Apocrypha  there  are  also  two  romances,  which  are  quite 
worthy  to  rank  with  the  earlier  productions.  They  are 
Tobit  and  Judith. 

The  Book  of  Tobit  is  a  story  of  the  Captivity.     It  is  a 


1 82  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

charming  Idyl  of  Hebrew  life  in  exile.  It  is  full  of  simple 
piety,  and  also  full  of  a  tender  spirit  of  humanity.  Among 
the  captives  taken  away  from  Palestine  to  Nineveh  is  an 
honest  Israelite,  Tobit  by  name,  who,  as  the  years  go  by, 
gets  for  himself  a  comfortable  and  happy  home  in  the  new 
land,  and  accumulates  a  competency,  a  part  of  which  he 
intrusts  to  a  Jewish  banker  in  distant  Media.  By  and  by 
misfortunes  befall  Tobit ;  he  and  his  Hebrew  brethren  are 
persecuted ;  his  possessions  are  confiscated,  and  by  a 
sudden  misfortune  he  loses  his  sight.  He  has  no  resource 
left  him  except  to  send  away  and  get  the  money  which  he 
has  placed  in  the  keeping  of  his  far-away  friend.  Who 
shall  go?  It  must  be  his  son  Tobias,  who,  however,  is  so 
young  that  a  traveling  companion  is  needed  for  him.  One 
is  found  in  another  young  man  named  Azarias.  The  two 
set  out  on  the  long  journey  together.  Before  they  reach 
the  end  they  come  to  the  city  of  Ecbatana  where  relations 
of  Tobias  live.  So  the  two  resolve  to  stop  for  a  visit.  In 
the  home  where  they  are  entertained  is  a  very  winsome 
young  lady  named  Sara,  with  whom  Tobias  very  naturally 
falls  in  love.  The  accommodating  Azarias  volunteers  to 
make  the  rest  of  the  journey  alone,  leaving  Tobias  to  do 
his  courting.  When  Azarias  comes  back  bringing  the 
money  the  lovers  are  married ;  and  the  happy  three  return 
home  to  Nineveh.  Azarias  turns  out  to  be  an  angel,  who  by 
his  superhuman  wisdom  and  kindness  has  brought  all  this 
good  fortune.  He  restores  sight  to  the  happy  old  man, 
and  then  disappears. 

The  details  of  the  story  are  quaint  and  curious,  including 
impossibilities  and  supernaturalisms  that  remind  one  of 
the  Arabian  Nights,  and  with  all  the  rest,  not  a  little  bad 
geography.  But  a  more  delightful  picture  of  the  simple, 
kindly,  God-fearing  life  of  an  old  time  Hebrew  family  in 
the  Orient  it  would  be  hard  to  conceive. 


THE   OLD    TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL  BOOKS.        1 83 

Very  different  is  the  story  of  Judith.  This  is  not  a 
romance  of  domestic  piety  and  love,  but  of  intense  patriot- 
ism and  the  most  heroic  daring,  Judith  is  one  of  the  strik- 
ing characters  of  fiction.  She  is  a  second  Jael,  a  woman 
Brutus,  a  Hebrew  Charlotte  Corday.  Many  are  the  artists 
who  have  essayed  to  paint  her,  splendidly  arrayed,  com- 
manding in  figure,  of  rare  beauty,  holding  in  her  hand  the 
head  of  Holofernes,  the  Assyrian  General,  whom  by  her 
cunning  she  has  brought  under  her  power,  and  slain,  to 
save  her  city  from  the  destruction  which  he  was  bringing 
upon  it.  The  story  of  her  deed  is  powerfully  told,  —  the 
reasons  for  it,  the  results  that  came  from  it,  and  the  con- 
summate skill  and  bravery  with  which  she  accomplished 
her  terrible  task.  There  will  always  be  difference  of  opin- 
ion about  the  ethics  involved  in  this  story.  But  as  to  the 
strength  and  literary  quality  of  the  narrative,  as  well  as  the 
courage  and  patriotism  of  the  heroine,  there  does  not  seem 
room  for  difference  of  view. 

The  Rest  of  the  Chapters  of  the  Book  of  Esther. — 
All  scholars  agree  that  the  Book  of  Esther  is  not  history, 
but  fiction.  This  group  of  brief  Apocryphal  writings  con- 
sists of  certain  additions  which  some  unknown  author  has 
seen  fit  to  make  to  the  original  book.  Naturally,  the  addi- 
tions are  as  much  fiction  as  the  book  itself;  nor  do  they 
add  much,  if  anything,  to  its  literary  value.  Probably  they 
were  written  by  some  one  who  wanted  to  make  the  book 
seem  more  religious.  Esther  has  been  much  criticized  by 
certain  writers  because  it  does  not  contain  anywhere  the 
name  of  God.  The  author  of  these  additions  (seemingly 
some  pious  Jew)  seeks  to  remove  that  defect  by  adding  a 
section  in  which  there  is  plentiful  use  made  of  the  divine 
name.  All  the  craft  and  hate  and  cruelty  of  the  original 
book  are  left,  and  indeed  more  still  are  added ;  but  since 


1 84  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF   THE   BIBLE. 

references  to  God  are  often  brought  in,  the  religious  char- 
acter of  the  book  is  supposed  to  be  much  improved.  Alas, 
how  much  was  this  old  Apocryphal  writer  like  so  many  men 
in  all  the  ages  since,  who  have  imagined  that  evil  can 
somehow  be  made  into  good  if  only  it  be  associated  with  a 
sufficient  array  of  pious  words. 

The  'Wisdom  of  Solomon. — This  is  a  great  book. 
Although  much  shorter  than  several  of  the  other  Apocry- 
phal writings,  in  literary  excellence  and  in  ethical  and 
spiritual  quality  it  is  clearly  entitled  to  a  first  place  among 
them. 

It  ought  not  to  be  associated  with  the  name  of  Solomon, 
for  it  was  not  written  until  a  thousand  years  after  Solo- 
mon's time.  It  belongs  to  the  "  Wisdom  Literature"  of 
Israel,  and  hence  is  to  be  classed,  in  a  way,  with  the  Old 
Testament  Books  of  Job,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Proverbs ;  but  it 
is  much  more  philosophical,  and  we  may  say  religious, 
than  any  of  these  except  Job.  Probably  its  author  lived 
in  Alexandria,  which  in  a  measure  would  account  for  the 
Greek  element  in  its  thought,  and  especially  for  the  fact 
that  its  conception  of  Wisdom  is  quite  as  much  Greek  as 
Hebrew.  This  conception  approaches  near  to  the  "  Logos 
Doctrine  "  of  the  Alexandrian  Philo,  and  to  the  echo  or 
reflection  of  that  doctrine  found  in  the  New  Testament  in 
the  prologue  to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  following  sen- 
tences show  how  exalted  is  the  conception  of  Wisdom 
found  in  this  Apocryphal  book :  — 

"  She  (Wisdom)  is  a  breath  of  the  power  of  God  and  a 
clear  effluence  of  the  glory  of  the  Almighty."  **  She  is  an 
effluence  from  everlasting  light,  and  an  unspotted  mirror  of 
the  working  of  God,  and  an  image  of  his  goodness."  "  She 
reneweth  all  things;  passing  into  holy  souls  she  maketh 
them  friends  of  God  and  prophets."     "  She  is  fairer  than 


THE   OLD    TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL   BOOKS.      1 85 

the  sun  and  above  all  the  constellations  of  the  stars ;  being 
compared  with  light  she  is  found  to  be  before  it ;  for  to 
the  light  of  day  succeedeth  night,  but  against  Wisdom  evil 
doth  not  prevail."  These  sentences  illustrate  at  once  the 
high  literary  quality  of  the  book  and  the  subtlety  and 
depth  of  its  religious  thought. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  is  much  more  clearly  taught  in  this  Apocryphal 
work  than  in  any  part  of  the  Old  Testament.  Here  are 
some  of  its  strong  statements  :  "  The  souls  of  the  righteous 
are  in  the  hand  of  God ;  in  the  eyes  of  the  unwise  they 
seem  to  perish,  but  they  are  in  happiness.  .  .  .  Their  hope 
is  full  of  immortality."  "  God  created  man  for  immortal- 
ity and  made  him  an  image  of  his  own  eternity." 

Even  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  is  not  so  un- 
equivocal as  this.  Nearly  everywhere  the  immortality  that 
it  teaches  is  associated  with,  if  not  conditioned  upon,  the 
doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  But  here  we 
have  the  clear  thought  that  the  soul  itself  is  immortal 
without  reference  to  the  physical  body. 

This  noble  book  would  not  be  out  of  place  in  either  the 
Old  Testament  or  the  New. 

Ecclesiasticus.  —  This  is  the  only  book  of  the  Apocry- 
pha of  whose  authorship  we  are  sure.  The  book  itself 
tells  us  that  it  was  written  by  Jesus  (the  Greek  form  of  the 
Hebrew  name  yoshud),  son  of  Sirach  Eleazer,  of  Jerusa- 
lem. Hence  the  name  often  given  to  it,  **  The  Wisdom  of 
Jesus,  the  Son  of  Sirach."  Its  time  of  writing  was  prob- 
ably nearly  two  centuries  before  Christ ;  hence  we  may  set 
it  down  with  considerable  certainty  as  the  oldest  of  the 
Apocryphal  writings.  As  to  its  nature,  it  is  a  sort  of 
Hebrew  text-book  in  morals.  Indeed,  it  has  been  declared 
to  be  the  most  complete  text-book  of  practical  morals  that 


1 86  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

the  religion  of  ancient  Israel  produced.  In  common  with 
the  preceding  work  it  belongs  to  the  Hebrew  Wisdom  Lit- 
erature. Its  kinship  to  the  Book  of  Proverbs  is  so  close 
that  one  can  easily  imagine  it  to  be  a  continuation  of  that 
production.  It  opens  with  the  praise  of  Wisdom,  which  it 
personifies ;  it  would  have  men  love  her,  whose  ways  lead 
always  to  safety  and  peace. 

In  form,  much  of  the  book  is  poetry;  some  translations 
give  it  a  poetical  form  throughout.  In  Professor  Moulton's 
arrangement  it  is  a  mixture  of  prose  and  poetry,  —  that  is, 
of  short  prose  essays,  on  a  great  variety  of  subjects  con- 
nected with  the  practical  conduct  of  life,  and  of  short  poet- 
ical pieces — sonnets,  epigrams,  and  others  —  upon  similar 
practical  themes.  It  shows  much  keen  observation  and 
much  wise  reflection.  Many  proverbs  are  scattered 
throughout  its  pages ;  some  whole  chapters  are  made  up 
of  proverbs.  Some  of  its  passages  are  perhaps  the  near- 
est approach  to  humor  that  we  find  in  ancient  Hebrew 
literature.  The  spirit  of  the  book  is  human,  manly,  stim- 
ulating to  right  living,  encouraging  to  a  well  ordered  and 
earnest  rehgious  life.  It  is  a  thoroughly  good  book  to 
read  privately ;  and  it  contains  many  valuable  lessons  for 
reading  in  churches. 

Baruch. —  There  was  a  man,  a  real  historical  personage, 
named  Baruch.  He  was  the  associate  and  secretary  of  the 
prophet  Jeremiah,  who  lived  at  the  beginning  of  the  cap- 
tivity in  Babylon,  six  centuries  before  Christ.  This  Apo- 
cryphal book  is  written  in  his  name ;  but  of  course  it  was 
not  actually  written  by  him,  for  it  did  not  come  into  exist- 
ence until  some  hundreds  of  years  after  his  death.  This  is 
a  case  similar  to  many  which  we  have  both  in  the  Apocry- 
phal writings  and  in  the  Old  Testament,  of  associating 
with  a  book  the  name  of  some  distinguished  character  of 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL   BOOKS.      1 8/ 

the  past,  perhaps  with  the  thought  of  thereby  adding  a 
little  to  the  dignity  and  standing  of  the  work ;  or,  possibly 
with  the  idea  of  doing  honor  to  the  character  named,  as  we 
to-day  erect  statues  to  great  men  of  past  time. 

This  Book  of  Baruch  is  a  sort  of  combined  history  and 
prophecy,  associated  both  with  Babylon  and  Jerusalem. 
But  its  supposed  history  is  mainly  legend  ;  and  its  proph- 
ecy, though  interesting  and  earnest  and  containing  noble 
passages,  is  not  of  so  much  importance  that  it  need  detain 
us. 

Song  of  the  Three  Holy  Children.  History  of 
Susanna.  Bel  and  the  Dragon. —  These  three  Apocry- 
phal writings  are  often  grouped  together,  under  the  title  of 
"Additions  to  Daniel."  With  two  of  them  the  name  of 
the  prophet  Daniel  is  directly  associated.  Bel  and  the 
Dragon  is  a  story  of  the  same  type  as  that  of  Daniel  in  the 
Lion's  Den,  which  means  that  children  always  Hke  it  when 
it  is  read  or  told  to  them.  The  history  of  Susanna  tells 
how  Daniel  rescued  an  innocent  woman  from  two  men  who 
had  plotted  her  ruin.  The  Song  of  the  Three  Holy  Chil- 
dren is  a  hymn  of  thanksgiving  which  the  three  Hebrew 
young  men,  who  were  cast  into  the  fiery  furnace,  are  said 
to  have  sung  in  the  midst  of  the  flames. 

The  Prayer  of  Manasseh,  King  of  Judah. —  Of  all  the 
Kings  of  Judah,  perhaps  Manasseh  (or  Manasses)  was  the 
worst.  This  prayer  of  repentance  and  contrition  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  offered  by  him  on  his  death  bed.  As  a 
prayer  it  is  somewhat  impressive.  But  the  association  of 
any  such  religious  utterance  with  King  Manasseh,  either 
in  life  or  death,  is  without  historic  warrant. 

First  and  Second  Maccabees. —  These  two  books,  with 
which  the  list  of  the  Old  Testament  Apocryphal  writings 
closes,  are  histories.     But  the  second  is  not  of  much  worth, 


1 88  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

partly  because  it  is  only  a  compilation  covering  the  same 
ground  (or  a  portion  of  the  same  ground)  as  the  first,  and 
partly  because  it  contains  so  much  that  is  legendary,  ex- 
aggerated, miraculous,  and  historically  unreliable.  We  may, 
therefore,  pass  the  second  book  by,  and  confine  ourselves 
to  the  earlier  and  more  important  work. 

First  Maccabees  is  a  book  of  great  historical  value, — 
simple,  sober,  and  straight-forward  in  its  narratives,  well- 
written,  and  in  a  high  degree  trustworthy.  Indeed,  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say,  that  as  regards  these  qualities,  it  is 
quite  the  equal,  if  not  the  superior,  of  any  of  the  historical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament.  And  it  covers  one  of  the 
most  important  periods  in  the  history  of  Israel,  that  of  the 
heroic  —  the  almost  superhumanly  heroic  —  struggle  for 
liberty  made  by  the  Jewish  people  under  the  leadership  of 
the  famous  Maccabean  family,  from  the  year  175  to  the 
year  135  B.C. 

Palestine  was  under  the  sway  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes, 
the  Syrian  Greek  King  who,  in  addition  to  other  tyrannies, 
undertook  to  crush  out  the  Jewish  religion,  and  to  plant  the 
Greek  in  its  place.  The  public  worship  of  the  Jews  was 
everywhere  forbidden.  Their  sacred  books  were  burned. 
Every  village  in  the  land  was  required  to  erect  an  altar  to 
the  Greek  gods  and  to  offer  sacrifices  thereon  each  day. 
In  Jerusalem  the  Temple  was  desecrated,  and  in  it  an  altar 
was  set  up  for  the  worship  of  the  Olympian  Zeus.  This 
drove  the  Jews  to  frenzy.  The  consequence  was  a  fierce 
revolt  led  by  Judas  Maccabeus,  his  father  and  four  brothers, 
who,  flying  to  the  mountains,  gathered  around  them  there 
bands  of  men  so  devoted  and  desperate  in  their  determi- 
nation to  protect  their  religious  faith  from  destruction,  that 
they  defeated  every  army  that  Antiochus  could  send  against 
them.     The  struggle  was  long  and  terrible.     Never  was 


THE   OLD    TESTAMENT  APOCRYPHAL  BOOKS.      1 89 

there  seen  jnore  fiery  religious  zeal,  sterner  patriotism  or 
more  heroic  valor,  than  on  the  part  of  these  men  who  were 
fighting  for  aU  that  was  dear  to  them.  As  a  result,  their 
religion  was  saved,  the  old  worship  was  everywhere  re- 
stored, the  Temple  was  purified,  and  once  more  dedicated 
to  Jehovah.  Even  political  freedom  was  won,  and,  for  a 
brief  period,  a  native  Jewish  government  was  set  up  again 
in  Palestine. 

Judas  Maccabeus  is  not  only  a  great  name  in  Jewish  his- 
tory, but  it  is  one  which  will  never  cease  to  occupy  an 
honored  place  among  the  patriots  and  religious  heroes  of 
the  world. 

One  wonders  that  a  work  of  such  historical  and  religious 
value  as  the  First  Book  of  Maccabees,  and  narrating  events 
so  honorable  to  the  Jewish  race,  should  not  have  been 
given  a  place  in  their  recognized  Scriptures.  Indeed,  it  is 
one  of  the  paradoxes  of  ecclesiastical  history  that  a  sacred 
volume,  which  contains  such  writings  as  the  Books  of 
Joshua,  Judges,  Kings,  Chronicles,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Esther, 
should  all  these  centuries  have  remained  closed  against 
not  only  First  Maccabees,  but  Tobit,  Ecclesiasticus,  and 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  CANON:  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT; 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

The  construction  of  a  definite  and  authorized  list  of 
sacred  writings  is  something  not  pecuHar  to  any  one 
religion.  The  followers  of  Buddha,  Zoroaster,  and  Maho- 
met formed  such  canons.  It  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
that  a  people  so  intensely  religious  as  the  Jews,  and  so 
deeply  feeling  themselves  to  be  the  chosen  people  of  God 
and  under  his  guidance,  should  do  the  same. 

The  Old  Testament  Canon. — The  Canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  made  up  of  three  different  collections  of 
books,  called  by  the  Jews  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the 
Hagiographa.  Says  Wellhausen  :  "  It  was  the  Law  that 
first  became  canonical  through  the  influence  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah ;  the  Prophets  became  so  considerably  later, 
and  the  Hagiographa  last  of  all."  This  really  epitomizes 
the  whole  story ;  but  it  will  be  more  intelligible  if  a  few 
details  are  added. 

The  formation  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  was  comparatively 
late  in  time,  and  it  was  a  slow  and  gradual  process.  For 
some  centuries  after  the  people  had  come  into  possession 
of  the  earlier  Old  Testament  writings — the  eighth  and 
seventh  century  prophecies,  the  earlier  collections  of 
Psalms  and  Proverbs,  the  historical  works  now  woven  into 
the  Pentateuch,  and  known  to  us  as  the  Elohistic  and 
Jehovistic  documents,  etc. — they  had  no  sacred  Canon.  As 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE    CANON.  I9I 

yet  all  these  books  existed  separately  and  were  circulated 
separately.  Some  were  known  better  than  others  ;  some 
were  held  in  higher  esteem  than  others ;  but  none  were 
yet  elevated  to  the  rank  of  sacred  writings. 

The  Law. — The  first  step  pointing  in  the  direction  of 
a  Canon  seems  to  have  been  taken  in  the  reign  of  King 
Josiah,  a  little  more  than  600  years  before  Christ,  when 
that  monarch  accepted  the  mysterious  "  book  of  the  law," 
said  to  have  been  found  in  the  Temple  by  Hilkiah  the 
priest  (probably  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy),  and  pro- 
claimed it  as  the  law  of  the  land,  instituting  a  general 
national  reformation  in  harmony  with  its  teachings. 

That  this  book,  however,  did  not  come  into  general 
acceptance  at  that  time,  or  for  a  century  and  a  half  after- 
wards, is  plain  from  the  numerous  prophetical  and  other 
writings  of  that  period.  Not  until  we  reach  the  time  of 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  almost  a  century  after  the  captivity, 
do  we  find  a  second  step  (and  this  time  an  effectual  one) 
taken  toward  a  Canon.  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  come  from 
Babylon  to  Jerusalem  filled  with  zeal  for  the  service  of 
the  Lord.  They  bring  with  them  an  important  book 
which  they  call  the  book  of  the  law  of  Moses,  contain- 
ing an  elaborate  code  for  the  regulation  of  the  temple 
worship  and  the  religious  life  of  the  people.  As  soon  as 
they  can  prepare  the  way  for  its  favorable  reception,  they 
call  the  people  together  in  a  great  assembly,  read  it  to 
them,  and  bind  them  wath  a  solemn  covenant  to  accept 
and  henceforth  obey  it.  This  is  in  the  year  444  B.C. 
The  book  was  almost  beyond  question  essentially,  not 
indeed,  our  complete  Pentateuch,  or  five  so-called  "  Books 
of  Moses,''  but  the  *'  Priestly  Document"  ("Z^")  which 
was  soon  after  combined  with  "  y,"  ''  E^'  and  *'Z^"  (see 
preceding  pp.  77-78)  and  thus  became  our  Pentateuch, 


192  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

or  Books  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and 
Deuteronomy  —  known  among  the  Jews  as  "  The  Law." 

The  Prophets. — With  the  law  thus  Hfted  up  into  sa- 
credness,  and  with  the  eyes  of  the  people  turned  more 
and  more  to  the  past,  as  from  this  time  on  they  were,  it 
was  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  writings  of  the  old 
prophets  also,  of  whom  the  nation  was  so  proud,  would 
be  lifted  up  into  sacredness  and  added  to  the  Canon. 
This  is  precisely  what  we  see  going  on  during  the  next 
two  centuries.  The  prophetical  writings  are  gradually 
gathered  together,  are  subjected  to  those  revisions  and 
editings  of  which  we  discover  so  many  traces,^  are  read 
more  and  more  among  the  people,  and  are  lifted  up  into 
ever  increasing  honor,  until  by  about  the  year  250  B.C. 
the  second  part  of  the  Canon  is  formed — that  part  known 
among  the  Jews  as  the  Prophets,  containing  the  Books 
of  Joshua,  Judges,  First  and  Second  Samuel,  First  and 
Second  Kings,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  the  twelve 
minor  prophets. 

The  Hagiographa. — But  the  Canon  cannot  stop  here. 
Other  writings,  some  of  them  of  much  importance,  are 
in  existence,  and  the  work  of  production  is  still  going 
forward.  Out  of  these  a  third  collection  is  gathered 
together  by  about  the  year  100  B.C.  We  find  this  collec- 
tion called  the  Hagiographa.  It  was  composed  of  those 
books  of  our  Old  Testament  not  included  in  the  Law  or 
the  Prophets ;  namely,  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job,  the  Song 
of  Solomon,  Ruth,  Lamentations,  Ecclesiastes,  Esther, 
Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  First  and  Second  Chronicles. 
And  yet  there  continued  long  to  be  doubt  about  some  of 


*  For  example,  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  which  joins  together  the  productions 
of  two  writers,  and  the  Book  of  Zechariah  which  mixes  those  of  three. 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE   CANON.  193 

the  books.  As  late  as  the  death  of  Paul  there  was  much 
dispute  whether  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Solomon 
ought  to  be  included.  Indeed,  none  of  the  books  of  this 
collection  were  ever  put  by  the  Jewish  people,  even  up 
to  the  time  of  Christ,  on  the  same  level  of  authority  with 
the  writings  of  the  two  older  collections.  Highest  of  all 
ranked  the  Law ;  somewhat  below  this,  the  Prophets ; 
distinctly  below  both,  the  Hagiographa,  Indeed,  it  was 
only  with  some  hesitancy,  and  a  little  license  of  speech, 
that  the  books  of  the  Hagiographa  were  spoken  of  as 
real  scripture  at  all. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  story  of  the  formation  of  the  Old 
Testament  Canon,  according  to  the  best  information  we 
are  able  to  obtain.  Is  it  a  story  that  excludes  the  possi- 
bility of  error  ?  Only  a  prejudiced  mind  can  claim  that. 
Unquestionably  the  result  which  it  chronicles  is  one 
whose  excellence,  on  the  whole,  we  may  well  be  appreci- 
ative of.  Yet  competent  scholarship  makes  for  it  no 
claim  of  inerrancy. 

The  New  Testament  Canon. — We  come  now  to  the 
New  Testament.  What  do  we  find  here  as  to  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Canon  ?  In  important  respects  the  Old  Testa- 
ment story  is  repeated.  Within  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  from  the  tiijie  of  the  birth  of  Christianity  the 
young  religion  created  for  itself  an  extensive  and  varied 
literature.  It  was  as  natural  and  inevitable  that,  sooner 
or  later,  out  of  this  literature  it  would  form  a  sacred 
book,  as  it  had  been  that  Judaism  should  form  a  sacred 
book  out  of  the  literature  of  its  religious  experience  and 
life.  This  was  what  actually  happened.  Up  to  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century  none  of  the  Christians 
seemingly  conceived  it  possible  that  there  could  be  any 
other  sacred  Scriptures  except  those  of  the  Old  Testa- 
13 


194  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

ment.  After  the  Gospels  and  various  Epistles  came  into 
existence,  they  were  for  a  long  time  much  less  esteemed 
than  the  old  scriptures.  Indeed,  up  to  about  the  middle 
of  the  second  century  they  were  not  so  highly  esteemed 
as  the  oral  traditions  of  the  churches  in  which  any  of 
the  apostles  had  preached.  But  by  the  close  of  the  sec- 
ond century  a  change  appears.  Certain  New  Testament 
books  have  come  into  more  general  favor  than  the  rest, 
and  are  beginning  to  be  classed  to  a  certain  extent  by 
themselves  as  a  new  sacred  collection.  As  time  goes 
on,  these  grow  more  and  more  into  use  among  the 
churches.  Yet  for  centuries  the  various  churches  con- 
tinued to  use,  side  by  side  with  the  writings  which  make 
up  our  New  Testament  to-day,  various  books  which  we 
call  spurious.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  hardly  one  of 
the  great  writers  and  "  Fathers  "  of  the  early  Church 
draws  the  line  of  canonicity  of  New  Testament  books 
just  where  we  draw  it.  In  almost  every  case  they  either 
include  some  books  that  we  reject,  or  else  reject  some 
books  that  we  include.  For  example,  Irenaeus,  one  of 
the  earliest  and  most  authoritative,  rejects  five  books 
which  we  have  now  in  the  New  Testament;  viz.,  Hebrews, 
Jude,  James,  Second  Peter,  Third  John;  while  he  puts 
great  value  upon  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  one  of  the 
so-called  apocryphal  books  which  we  reject,  and  calls  it 
scripture.  Again,  Clement  of  Alexandria  classes  three 
apocryphal  books— to  wit,  the  Apocalypse  of  Peter,  the 
Epistle  of  Barnabas,  and  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas— as  of 
equal  value  and  authority  with  our  three  New  Testament 
books,  Hebrews,  Second  John,  and  Jude.  The  celebrated 
TertuUian  cast  out  all  the  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
except  the  four  Gospels,  Acts,  thirteen  Epistles  of  Paul, 
the  Revelation,  and  First  John.     Even  Athanasius  quotes 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE   CANON.  195 

a  number  of  the  apocryphal  books  as  of  equal  value  and 
inspiration  with  those  which  are  included  in  our  present 
Canon. 

The  Age  which  Produced  the  New  Testament 
Canon. — One  fact  alone,  when  we  come  duly  to  consider 
it,  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  think  of  the  age  which 
gives  us  our  New  Testament  Canon  as  one  capable  of 
any  other  than  imperfect  work  in  such  a  direction.  That 
fact  is,  the  universal  credulity  and  want  of  critical  scholar- 
ship which  prevailed.  We,  in  our  age  of  science,  which 
investigates  and  tests  everything,  can  have  no  adequate 
conception  of  the  ease  with  which  men  accepted  what- 
ever they  desired  to  accept,  upon  the  smallest  modi- 
cum of  evidence,  or  even  with  no  real  evidence  at  all. 
In  the  weighty  and  carefully  considered  words  of  Dr. 
Hedge  :  "  After  all  that  Biblical  critics  and  antiquarian 
research  have  raked  from  the  dust  of  antiquity  in  proof 
of  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament,  credibility  still  labors  with  the  fact 
that  the  age  in  which  these  books  were  received  and  put 
in  circulation  was  one  in  which  the  science  of  criticism 
as  developed  by  the  moderns — the  science  which  scruti- 
nizes statements,  balances  evidence  for  and  against,  and 
sifts  the  true  from  the  false — did  not  exist  ;  an  age  when 
a  boundless  credulity  disposed  men  to  believe  in  wonders 
as  readily  as  in  ordinary  events,  requiring  no  stronger 
proof  in  the  case  of  the  former  than  sufficed  to  establish 
the  latter,  viz.,  hearsay  and  vulgar  report ;  an  age  when 
literary  honesty  was  a  virtue  almost  unknown,  and  when, 
consequently,  literary  forgeries  were  as  common  as  genu- 
ine productions,  and  transcribers  of  sacred  books  did  not 
scruple  to  alter  the  text  in  the  interest  of  personal  views 
and  doctrinal  prepossessions.    The  newly  discovered  Sina- 


196  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

itic  code,  the  earliest  known  manuscript  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, dates  from  the  fourth  century.  Tischendorf  the 
discoverer,  a  very  orthodox  critic,  speaks  without  reserve 
of  the  license  in  the  treatment  of  the  text  apparent  in 
this  manuscript — a  license,  he  says,  especially  character- 
istic of  the  first  three  centuries."^ 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  from  such  an  age  as 
this  that  our  New  Testament  Canon  comes. 

Says  Davidson  :  "  The  exact  principles  that  guided  the 
formation  of  a  Canon  cannot  be  discovered.  Definite 
grounds  for  the  reception  or  rejection  of  books  were  not 
very  clearly  apprehended.  The  choice  was  determined 
by  various  circumstances.  The  development  was  per- 
vaded by  no  critical  or  definite  principle.  No  member  of 
the  synod  [that  might  be  at  any  time  engaged  in  consid- 
ering the  subject  of  what  books  ought  to  be  regarded  as 
canonical]  exercised  his  critical  faculty  ;  a  number  would 
decide  such  matters  summarily.  Bishops  proceeded  in 
the  track  of  tradition  or  authority."  Moreover,  a  great 
deal  of  bigotry  and  partisanship  and  bad  blood  was 
manifested  from  first  to  last.  Bishops  freely  accused 
bishops  of  forgery  of  sacred  writings  and  of  alteration  of 
the  oldest  texts ;  and,  altogether,  the  debates  and  proceed- 
ings of  the  synods  and  councils  that  had  part  in  settling 
the  Canon  remind  one  very  much  of  some  of  the  worst 
political  conventions  of  our  day.^ 

'  "  Ways  of  the  Spirit,"  p.  325.  For  an  excellent  picture  of  the  intellect- 
ual condition  of  Christendom  during  the  ages  in  which  the  Canon  of  the  New 
Testament  was  being  settled,  see  Lecky's  "History  of  European  Morals," 
vol.  ii.  pp.  108-21 1. 

"^  On  the  spirit  that  pervaded  the  councils,  see  Lecky's  "  European  Morals/' 
vol.  M.  pp.  207-210.  Says  Dean  Milman  :  "  Nowhere  is  Christianity  less 
attractive  than  in  the  councils  of  the  Church.  .  .  .  Intrigue,  injustice, 
violence,  decisions  on  authority  alone,  and  that  the  authority  of  a  turbulent 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE   CANON.  197 

The  Canon  Never  Settled. — Definite  and  final  results 
were  never  reached.  It  is  claimed  by  some  that  the 
Council  of  Laodicea  (363  A.D.)  settled  the  Canon  finally  ; 
but  this,  Davidson,  as  high  an  authority  on  the  subject  as 
we  have,  denies.  These  are  his  words  :  **  Notwithstand- 
ing the  numerous  endeavors  both  in  the  East  and  West 
to  settle  the  Canon  during  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries, 
it  was  not  finally  closed.  The  doubts  of  individuals  were 
still  expressed,  and  succeeding  ages  testify  to  the  want  of 
universal  agreement  respecting  several  books."  Indeed, 
if  that  council  did  settle  what  books  properly  belong  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  then  we  are  wrong  to-day 
in  not  including  Baruch  in  our  Old  Testament,  and  in 
retaining  Revelation  in  our  New.  Moreover,  if,  as  is 
sometimes  claimed,  the  Council  of  Carthage  (A.D.  397  ?) 
settled  the  Canon,  then  we  are  wrong  in  not  including 
Ecclesiasticus,  Wisdom,  Tobit,  Judith,  and  First  and 
Second  Maccabees  in  our  present  Bible. 

Indeed,  the  Romanists  allow  that  the  Canon  was  not 
settled  until  the  modern  Council  of  Trent,  held  from  1545 
to  1563,  in  the  midst  of  the  German  Reformation.  This 
council  proceeded  to  pass  a  formal  decree  declaring  what 
books  properly  belong  in  the  Bible.  The  list  is  that  of 
our  present  Protestant  Bible,  with  the  addition  of  the 
fourteen  books  of  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha.  The 
Romanists,  therefore,  with  their  theory  that  their  church 

majority  .  .  .  detract  from  the  reverence  and  impugn  the  judgments  of 
at  least  the  later  councils.  The  close  is  almost  invariably  a  terrible  anath- 
ema, in  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  discern  the  tones  of  human  hatred,  of 
arrogant  triumph,  of  rejoicing  at  the  damnation  imprecated  against  the 
humiliated  adversary."  "  History  of  Latin  Christianity,"  vol.  i.  p.  227. 
See  also  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  chap,  xlvii.  ; 
and  Milman's  "  History  of  Latin  Christianity,"  book  i.  chap,  ii.,  and  book 
ii.  chaps,  i.-iv.  passim. 


198  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

is  infallible  in  its  decisions,  may  well  claim  to  have  an 
authoritative  scripture  Canon.  But  there  can  be  no 
ground  for  such  claim  on  the  part  of  Protestants. 

The  Canon  Imperfect. — Luther  was  decidedly  of  the 
opinion  that  our  present  Canon  is  imperfect.  He  thought 
that  the  Old  Testament  Book  of  Esther  did  not  belong 
in  the  Bible.  On  the  other  hand,  in  translating  the  Old 
Testament,  he  translated  the  apocryphal  books  of  Judith, 
Wisdom,  Tobit,  Sirach,  Baruch,  First  and  Second  Macca- 
bees, and  the  Prayer  of  Manasseh.  In  his  prefaces  he 
gives  his  judgment  concerning  these  books.  With  regard 
to  First  Maccabees,  he  thinks  it  almost  equal  to  the  other 
books  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  not  unworthy  to  be  reck- 
oned among  them.  Of  Wisdom,  he  says  he  was  long  in 
doubt  whether  it  should  be  numbered  among  the  canoni- 
cal books ;  and  of  Sirach  he  says  that  it  is  a  right  good 
book,  proceeding  from  a  wise  man.  He  had  judgments 
equally  decided  regarding  certain  New  Testament  books. 
He  thought  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  came  neither 
from  Paul  nor  any  of  the  apostles,  and  was  not  to  be  put 
on  an  equality  with  Epistles  written  by  apostles  them- 
selves. The  Apocalypse  (or  Revelation)  he  considered 
neither  apostolic  nor  prophetic,  and  of  little  or  no  worth. 
He  did  not  believe  the  Epistle  of  Jude  proceeded  from 
an  apostle.  James'  Epistle  he  pronounced  unapostolic, 
and  "  an  epistle  of  straw." 

The  great  Swiss  reformer  Zwingli  maintained  that  the 
Apocalypse  is  not  properly  a  biblical  book.  Even  Calvin 
did  not  think  that  Paul  was  the  author  of  Hebrews,  or 
Peter  of  the  book  called  Second  Peter;  while  as  to  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  he  denounced  it  as  unintelligible, 
and  prohibited  the  pastors  of  Geneva  from  all  attempts 
at  interpreting  it. 


THE   FORMATION  OF  THE   CANON.  199 

Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  more  important  facts  re- 
garding the  formation  of  our  Old  and  New  Testament 
Canons,  as  the  most  candid  and  scholarly  criticism  of  our 
generation  has  brought  them  to  view.  In  the  light  of 
these  facts  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  men  who  are  responsi- 
ble for  our  Bible  being  what  it  is,  made  many  and  even 
grave  mistakes. 

And  yet,  let  us  not  allow  ourselves  to  judge  narrowly 
or  unjustly.  Could  we  understand  all  the  circumstances, 
we  should  probably  be  surprised,  and  certainly  we  should 
see  that  we  have  reason  to  be  grateful,  that  those  mistakes 
were  not  more  and  graver  still.  That  the  books  which 
have  been  declared  canonical,  and  handed  down  as  such 
to  us,  are  on  the  whole  of  so  high  a  type,  morally  and 
spiritually,  argues  much  for  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  intuitions  of  the  race.  Moreover,  it 
argues  that  a  great  and  wonderful  law,  like  that  which 
the  scientists  call  "  natural  selection,"  or  "  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,"  exists  and  works  powerfully  and  perpetually 
not  only  in  the  physically  organic  world,  but  also  quite 
as  really  in  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious  worlds. 
Or,  to  put  essentially  the  same  thing  in  the  form  in  which 
Christianity  would  put  it,  it  argues  that  there  is  abroad 
in  the  world  an  infinite  *'  Spirit  of  Truth  "  working  every- 
where, and  '*  leaving  himself  not  without  witness  "  in  any 
age.i 

'  For  further  information  regarding  the  Canon  of  the  Old  and  New  Tes- 
taments, see  Davidson's  "  Canon  of  the  Bible,"  or  the  article  "  Canon  "  in 
the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (which  is  an  abridgment  of  Davidson's  book)  ; 
Buhl's  "Canon  and  Text  of  the  Old  Testament "  ;  Ryle's  "Canon  of  the 
Old  Testament  ; "  Robertson  Smith's  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish 
Church,"  lects.  v.  and  vi.  ;  Toy's  "  Judaism  and  Christianity,"  pp.  68-76  ; 
Knappert's  Religion  of  Israel,"  chap.  xxi.  ;  Westcott's  "Canon  of  the  New 
Testament" 


200  ORIGIN'  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Analogy  between  the  Formation  of  the  Christian  and 
Buddhist  Canons. — No  little  light  is  thrown  upon  the 
origin  and  collection  of  the  New  Testament  writings  by 
the  account  given  by  Max  Miiller  of  the  origin  of  the 
Buddhist  Sacred  Writings  and  their  formation  into  a 
canon,  which  I  could  scarcely  forgive  myself  if  I  did  not 
quote  before  leaving  this  part  of  my  subject. 

*'  During  the  life  of  Buddha,"  says  Miiller,  "  no  record 
of  events,  no  sacred  code  containing  the  sayings  of  the 
master,  was  wanted.  His  presence  was  enough,  and 
thoughts  of  the  future  seldom  entered  the  minds  of 
those  who  followed  him.  It  was  only  after  Buddha  had 
left  the  world  to  enter  into  Nirvana  that  his  disciples 
attempted  to  recall  the  sayings  and  doings  of  their  de- 
parted friend  and  master.  Then  everything  that  seemed 
to  redound  to  the  glory  of  Buddha,  however  extraor- 
dinary and  incredible,  was  eagerly  welcomed,  while  wit- 
nesses who  would  have  ventured  to  criticise  or  reject 
unsupported  statements,  or  detract  in  any  way  from  the 
holy  character  of  Buddha,  had  no  chance  of  being  listened 
to.  And  when,  in  spite  of  all  this,  differences  of  opinion 
arose,  they  were  not  brought  to  the  test  of  a  careful 
weighing  of  evidence,  but  the  names  of  *  unbeliever'  and 
'  heretic '  were  quickly  invented  in  India  as  elsewhere, 
and  bandied  backwards  and  forwards  between  contending 
parties,  till  at  last,  when  the  doctors  disagreed,  the  help 
of  the  secular  power  had  to  be  invoked,  and  kings  and 
emperors  convoked  councils  for  the  suppression  of  schism, 
for  the  settlement  of  an  orthodox  creed,  and  for  the  com- 
pletion of  the  sacred  Canon.  We  know  of  King  Asoka, 
the  contemporary  of  Seleucus,  sending  his  royal  missive 
to  the  assembled  elders,  and  telling  them  what  to  do  and 
what  to  avoid,  warning  them  also  in  his  own  name  of  the 


THE  FORMATION  OF   THE   CANON.  2OI 

apocryphal  or  heretical  character  of  certain  books  which, 
as  he  thinks,  ought  not  to  be  admitted  into  the  sacred 
Canon. 

''  We  here,"  continues  Miiller,  "  learn  a  lesson,  which  is 
confirmed  by  the  study  of  other  religions,  that  canonical 
books,  though  they  furnish  in  most  cases  the  most  authen- 
tic information  within  the  reach  of  the  student  of  reli- 
gion, are  not  to  be  trusted  implicitly;  nay,  that  they  must 
be  submitted  to  a  more  searching  criticism  and  to  more 
stringent  tests  than  any  other  historical  books." 

In  reading  the  above,  one  can  hardly  believe  that  it  is 
not  the  history  of  the  origin  of  our  own  New  Testament 
writings  and  the  formation  of  our  own  New  Testament 
Canon  that  Professor  Miiller  is  tracing,  instead  of  the 
origin  of  the  Buddhist  Sacred  Writings  and  the  formation 
of  the  Buddhist  Canon.  For  if  we  substitute  "  Jesus  "  in 
the  place  of  **  Buddha,"  "  the  countries  around  the  Medi- 
terranean Sea  "  in  the  place  of  "  India,"  and  the  "  Em- 
peror Constantine "  with  one  or  two  other  Christian 
emperors  in  the  place  of  "  King  Asoka,"  we  shall  have  an 
almost  exact  record  of  the  origin  of  a  large  part  of  the 
literature  which  came  into  being  as  the  result  of  Jesus* 
life  and  teachings,  and  the  manner  in  which  a  portion  of 
this  became  singled  out  from  the  rest,  and  by  degrees 
united  into  essentially  what  is  now  our  New  Testament. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE  OLD   AND   NEW  TESTAMENT   TEXT:   ITS   FORMATION 
AND   PRESERVATION.— I. 

We  have  seen  how  the  different  books  of  the  Bible 
originated,  and  how  they  were  gathered  together  into  a 
sacred  Canon ;  we  must  now  inquire  how  they  have  been 
preserved  and  brought  down  to  our  day. 

There  is  a  popular  impression  existing,  not  quite  indeed 
that  the  Bible  authors  wrote  in  English,  but  at  least  that 
we  can  trace  our  Hebrew  and  Greek  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments straight  back  to  the  manuscripts  of  the  inspired 
penmen,  so  that  there  can  be  scarcely  more  doubt  about 
our  having  their  precise  words  than  there  is  about  our 
having  the  exact  words  of  the  Declaration  of  American 
Independence,  or  of  a  book  printed  from  an  author's 
manuscripts  yesterday.  Whether  this  impression  is  cor- 
rect or  not,  and  what  the  facts  in  the  case  really  are,  it 
will  be  the  aim  of  this  chapter  and  the  next  concisely 
to  show. 

The  Languages  of  the  Bible. — In  what  tongues  were 
the  Old  Testament  books  written?  Mainly  in  the 
Hebrew;  sections  of  two  of  the  books,  however,  Ezra 
and  Daniel,  were  written  in  Aramaic.^ 

What  were  these  languages  ?  Both  were  of  the  Sem- 
itic stock ;  they  were  about  as  closely  related  as  are  Eng- 

'  Ezra  iv.  8-vi.  i8,  and  vii.  12-26  ;  Dan.  ii.  4-vii.  28  ;  also  the  interpolated 
verse,  Jer.  x.  11. 


THE   OLD  AND  NEW  ^TESTAMENT  TEXT.  203 

lish  and  German.  The  Hebrew  was,  of  course,  the  native 
tongue  of  the  Hebrew  people ;  but  it  passed  out  of  pop- 
ular use  three  or  four  centuries  before  Christ  (after  the 
return  from  the  exile),  and  was  replaced  by  the  Aramaic, 
which  had  come  to  be  widely  used  as  the  language  of 
travel  and  commerce  throughout  Western  Asia.  Most 
of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  written  while 
the  Hebrew  was  yet  the  spoken  tongue  of  the  people. 
After  it  had  been  crowded  out  from  popular  speech  by 
the  Aramaic,  it  still  remained  the  literary  and  sacred 
language ;  hence  it  is  not  strange  that  essentially  all  the 
books  preserved  in  the  Canon  were  written  in  Hebrew, 
even  those  composed  after  the  arrival  of  the  Aramaic. 

Coming  to  the  New  Testament,  we  find  that  to  be 
written  in  Greek.  At  the  first  look  this  seems  somewhat 
strange.  Jesus  and  his  disciples  were  all  Jews.  They 
unquestionably  spoke  Aramaic,  in  common  with  the  Jews 
of  Palestine  generally.  Why  then  was  not  the  New  Testa- 
ment written  in  Hebrew — the  Jews'  sacred  language,  and 
the  language  of  the  Old  Testament  ?  Or,  if  not  in  Hebrew, 
then  why  not  in  Aramaic,  the  popular  tongue  ? 

Some  of  the  earlier  writings  of  Christianity  undoubtedly 
were  written  in  Aramaic,  but  these  have  been  mainly 
lost.  The  reasons  why  Greek  became  the  New  Testament 
language  are  not  hard  to  discover.  They  are  the  follow- 
ing: 

1.  Christianity  soon  came  to  be  regarded,  and  to  regard 
itself,  as  a  new  religion,  and  not  simply  as  a  sect  of 
Judaism.  Hence  it  is  not  strange  that  it  should  not  have 
cared  greatly  to  cling  to  the  old  sacred  language. 

2.  It  began  early  to  push  out  beyond  the  Jews,  and  to 
find  its  greatest  successes  and  strength  among  Gentile 
peoples.      Hence  it   could  hardly  be  willing  to  weight 


204  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

itself  with  a  dead  language  like  the  Hebrew,  which  so 
large  a  part  of  its  adherents  could  not  understand. 

3.  Most  important  of  all,  Greek  had  by  this  time  be- 
come the  great  language  of  literature,  of  international 
intercourse,  and  largely  of  commerce.  In  Palestine  it  was 
tending  to  supersede  Aramaic,  at  least  among  the  more 
intelligent  and  wealthy  classes ;  while  throughout  most  of 
the  Roman  Empire  it  was  the  dominant  tongue.  Even 
the  Hebrew  scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  had  been 
translated  into  Greek  for  the  use  of  Greek-speaking  Jews. 
It  was  these  Greek-speaking  Jews,  and  especially  the 
great  Greek-speaking  Gentile  world,  that  gave  chief  wel- 
come to  Christianity.  It  could  not  be  otherwise,  there- 
fore, than  that  Greek  should  become  the  language  of  the 
new  religion  and  its  new  sacred  Scriptures. 

So  much  for  the  languages  in  which  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  were  originally  written.  Thus  we  see  at  the 
outset  not  only  that  all  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  have 
to  come  to  us  in  English  through  a  translation,  but  that 
the  words  of  Jesus,  the  most  important  of  the  Bible 
teachers,  having  been  spoken  in  Aramaic,  and  given  to 
the  world  in  Greek,  can  come  to  us  in  any  modern  lan- 
guage only  through  two  translations. 

What  do  we  really  know  about  the  original  Hebrew 
and  Greek  scriptures?  Let  us  try  to  work  our  way  back 
to  those  originals,  beginning  with  the  Old  Testament. 

Old  Testament  Manuscripts. — We  are  to-day  in  pos- 
session of  an  Old  Testament  text  printed  in  Hebrew. 
How  far  back  does  this  go  ?  It  can  go  only  a  little  way, 
for  all  printing  is  modern.  But  do  we  not  have  Old  Tes- 
tament manuscripts  ?  And  are  not  these  very  ancient  ? 
The  oldest  Hebrew  manuscript  of  the  entire  Old  Testa- 
ment that  we  possess  goes  back  to  the  year  1009  A.D. ; 


THE   OLD   AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT.  20$ 

and  the  oldest  of  any  part  of  the  Bible  (the  Prophet 
codex)  goes  back  to  916  A.D.^  Is  this  far?  In  a  sense, 
yes.  And  yet  how  small  a  part  is  it  of  the  whole  journey 
back  to  those  ancient  times  when  the  old  prophets  and 
psalmists  and  law-makers  wrote !  What  of  the  twelve, 
thirteen,  fourteen,  fifteen  hundred  years  that  lie  still  back 
before  we  reach  the  birth  of  the  Old  Testament  books? 
How  do  we  know  that  these  relatively  modern  manu- 
scripts (yet  oldest  that  we  possess)  are  faithful  transcripts 
of  those  written  so  many  centuries  earlier  by  Isaiah  and 
Jeremiah  and  Ezra? 

Hebrew  Written  without  Vowels. — As  soon  as  we 
begin  making  inquiries  about  the  original  language  of  the 
Old  Testament,  one  fact  comes  to  light  which  is  of 
immense  and  even  startling  significance.  It  is  the  fact 
that  the  Hebrew  written  language  originally  contained  no 
vowels  or  vowel-marks.  This,  of  course,  means  nothing 
less  than  that  the  Old  Testament  books  were  written 
simply  in  consonant  outline,  and  in  this  form  were  pre- 
served for  many  centuries. 

True,  if  we  take  up  a  Hebrew  Bible  or  manuscript 
now,  we  shall  find  this  consonant  outline  filled  out  with 
dots  and  other  marks  above  and  below,  to  indicate  the 
vowels  that  should  be  understood.  But  these  vowel 
marks  are  no  part  of  the  original  Hebrew  Bible.  Then 
men  read  the  various  books  as  best  they  could  from  the 
consonants  alone,  supplying  the  vowels  according  to  the 
seeming  requirement  of  the  sense,  or  the  oral  instructions 
which  they  had  received  from  tradition. 

Uncertainty  of  Consonant  Writing. — Try  to  imagine 
how  much  accuracy  could  be  preserved  to-day  in  writings 

*  Both  are  preserved  in  the  Imperial  Library  of  St.  Petersburg. 


206  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

made  up  solely  of  consonants  which  simply  put,  let  us  say, 
bk  for  book,  or  back,  or  beck ;  ppr  for  paper,  or  piper,  or 
pepper ;  pn  for  pun,  or  pain,  or  pin,  or  pan ;  and  so  on. 

That  I  may  not  convey  a  false  impression,  let  me  cite 
a  word  or  two  from  the  ancient  Hebrew.  The  Hebrew 
word  (or  consonant  outline  of  a  word)  qtl  may  be  a  noun, 
a  verb,  or  a  participle  ;  and,  if  a  verb,  it  may  be  active, 
passive,  or  reflexive ;  and  it  may  have  nine  different 
meanings,  according  to  the  vowels  that  the  reader  sup- 
plies in  connection  with  it.  The  Hebrew  word  dbhr  may 
have  five  different  meanings,  to  wit :  "a  word,**  '*  he  hath 
spoken,"  "  to  speak,"  **  speaking,"  "  it  has  been  spoken," 
and  "  a  pestilence,"  according  to  the  vowels  we  supply. 
This,  then,  is  the  kind  of  written  language  in  which  the 
larger  part  of  our  Bible  finds  itself  originally  recorded. 
As  Gesenius  says:  **  How  imperfect  and  indefinite  such  a 
mode  of  writing  was,  is  easily  seen." 

Prof.  T.  F.  Curtis  compares  this  consonant  outline  to 
the  stenographic  shorthand  of  reporters.  He  says:  "So 
long  as  the  Hebrew  language  was  a  spoken  tongue,  it 
was  written  without  vowels  or  any  letters  being  doubled. 
This  is  just  the  way  our  shorthand  writers  now  take 
down  speeches,  and  is  generally  sufficient  to  remind  the 
reporter  of  a  speech,  the  ideas  of  which  have  been  dis- 
tinctly and  recently  understood.  Some  years  ago  a  friend 
undertook  to  learn  shorthand.  Hessian  boots  were  worn 
in  those  days  with  little  tassels,  one  in  front  of  each. 
Going  out  hastily,  this  gentleman  discovered  that  a  tassel 
was  torn  off  one  of  his  boots,  and  to  show  his  proficiency 
in  the  new  art,  he  wrote  his  teacher,  in  another  room,  to 
ask:  '  Have  you  an  old  boot  tassel  ?  *  The  vowels  being 
all  omitted,  and  also  the  doubling  of  the  letters,  signs 
were  made  for  the  following  letters :  *  Hv  y  n  Id  bt  tsl,' 


THE   OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT.  20/ 

which  his  friend  not  unnaturally  read  thus :  *  Have  you 
an  old  boot  to  sell  ?  '  Why  his  pupil  could  want  to  buy 
an  old  boot  from  him  required  more  explanation  than 
shorthand  could  well  give.  Now  the  difficulty  of  the 
ancient  Hebrew  without  points  is  just  this  :  that,  although 
where  people  were  very  familiar  with  the  subject  and 
language,  this  style  of  writing  was  ordinarily  sufficient  at 
least  to  guide  the  priests,  and  remind  them  of  the  law,  so 
that  they  could  explain  it  to  the  people  ;  yet  there  would 
always  be  many  cases  where  the  meaning  was  left  ex- 
tremely doubtful,  without  the  aid  and  authority  of  tra- 
dition." 1 

Says  Prof.  Robertson  Smith  on  this  point :  "  Let 
me  ask  you  to  realize  precisely  how  the  scribes,  at  and 
before  the  time  of  Christ,  proceeded  in  dealing  with  the 
Bible.  They  had  nothing  before  them  but  the  bare  text 
denuded  of  its  vowels,  so  that  the  same  words  might 
often  be  read  and  interpreted  in  two  different  ways.  A 
familiar  example  of  this  is  given  in  Heb.  xi.  21,  where 
we  read  of  Jacob  leaning  upon  the  top  of  his  '  staff  ' ;  but 
when  we  turn  to  our  Hebrew  Bible,  as  it  is  now  printed 
(Gen.  xlvii.  31),  we  there  find  nothing  about  the  *  staff*; 
we  find  the  *  bed.'  Well,  the  Hebrew  for  *  the  bed  *  is 
hammittahy  while  the  Hebrew  for  *  the  staff  '  is  hammatteh. 
The  consonants  in  these  two  words  are  the  same,  the  vow- 
els are  different.  But  the  consonants  only  were  written, 
and  therefore  it  was  quite  possible  for  one  person  to  read 
the  word  as  *  bed,*  as  is  now  the  case  in  our  English  Bible, 
following  the  reading  of  the  Hebrew  scribes  ;  and  for  the 
author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  on  the  other  hand, 

*  "Human  Element  in  Inspiration,"  pp.  170-174.  See  also  Davidson's 
"  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,"  vol.  i.  p.  107. 


208  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

to  understand  it  as  a  *  staff,'  following  the  interpretation 
of  the  Greek  Septuagint.  Beyond  the  bare  text,  which 
in  this  way  was  often  ambiguous,  the  scribes  had  no  guide 
but  oral  teaching.  They  had  no  rules  of  grammar  to  go 
by ;  the  kind  of  Hebrew  which  they  themselves  wrote 
often  admitted  grammatical  constructions  which  the  old 
language  forbade,  and  when  they  came  to  an  obsolete 
word  or  idiom  they  had  no  guide  to  its  meaning,  unless 
their  masters  had  told  them  that  the  pronunciation  and 
the  sense  were  so  and  so.'*  ^ 

Adding  the  Vowel  Points. — This  was  the  condition  in 
which  the  Hebrew  written  language  not  only  was  at  first, 
but  remained  for  many  centuries.  Indeed,  this  serious 
defect  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  was  not  remedied  until  the 
seventh  or  eighth  century  after  Christ,  when  the  school 
of  Jewish  scholars  known  as  the  Massorites  revised  the 
Old  Testament  text  with  great  patience,  and  added  the 
vowel  points  according  to  their  best  ability  ;  but  they  had 
nothing  to  guide  them  except  their  own  judgment  and 
very  imperfect  tradition,  and  that  they  made  numberless 
mistakes  every  Hebrew  scholar  knows.  Says  Professor 
Driver :  "  It  is  true,  since  the  rise  of  the  school  called  the 
Massorites  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  (and  prob- 
ably for  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  especially  the  Law, 
from  a  considerably  earlier  date),  the  Jews  displayed  a 
scrupulous  fidelity  in  the  preservation  and  correct  trans- 
mission of  their  sacred  books ;  but  nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that  the  period  during  which  this  care  was 
exercised  was  preceded  by  one  of  no  small  laxity,  in  the 
course  of  which  corruptions  of  different  kinds  found  their 
way  into   the  text   of  the  Old  Testament.     The  Jews, 

'  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church."  pp.  50,  51. 


THE   OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT  209 

when  it  was  too  late  to  repair  by  this  means  the  mischief 
that  had  been  done,  proceeded  to  guard  their  sacred 
books  with  extraordinary  care,  with  the  result  that  cor- 
rupt readings  were  simply  perpetuated,  being  placed  by 
them  (of  course,  unconsciously)  on  precisely  the  same 
footing  as  the  genuine  text,  and  invested  with  a  fictitious 
semblance  of  originality."  ^ 

It  used  to  be  held  that  the  vowel  points  were  added  to 
the  Hebrew  text  by  Ezra,  in  the  fifth  century  before  Christ, 
and  that  he  was  specially  inspired  of  God  for  the  work, 
so  that  he  could  make  no  mistakes.  When,  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  this  view  was  shown 
by  Levita  and  Cappellus,  in  France,  to  be  without  founda- 
tion, and  when  it  was  proved  that  the  vowel  points  were 
introduced  by  the  Massorites  more  than  a  thousand  years 
after  Ezra,  there  was  great  excitement  throughout  all 
Protestant  Europe.  To  many  it  seemed  as  if  the  new 
theory  meant  the  utter  subversion  of  religion  ;  for  if  the 
vowel  points  were  not  given  by  divine  revelation,  but 
were  only  men's  invention,  and  at  so  late  a  date,  what 
dependence  was  there  to  be  put  upon  the  scripture  text  ? 
The  discussion  kindled  was  one  of  the  hottest  in  the  his- 
tory of  modern  biblical  criticism,  and  lasted  more  than 

'  "  Notes  on  the  Hebrew  Text  of  the  Books  of  Samuel,"  p.  37. 

Says  C.  H.  H.  Wright  :  "  Although  the  main  contents  of  the  sacred 
Scriptures  have  been  well  preserved,  these  scriptures  have  not  come  down 
to  us  in  the  exact  shape  in  which  they  were  at  first  written,  or  even  as 
finally  edited  by  their  pre-Christian  revisers.  The  Massorites  did  their  best 
to  establish  a  uniform  text,  and  in  doing  so  stereotyped  not  a  few  corrup- 
tions. And  the  Hebrew  MSS.,  though  substantially  following  the  text  as 
settled  by  those  scholars,  were,  when  duly  examined  by  Kennicott,  De 
Rossi,  and  others,  proved  to  abound  in  mistakes."  "Introduction  to  the 
Old  Testament,"  pp.  14,  15.  See  chaps,  iii.  and  iv.  entire.  Also  see 
Smith's  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  lees,  ii.,  iii.,  iv.,  and  v. 
ri 


210  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

a  century.  But  finally  it  ceased  ;  the  new  view  was 
accepted,  and  men  found,  many  of  them  greatly  to  their 
astonishment,  that  religion  was  in  no  way  injured.  They 
had  simply  made  again  the  mistake,  which  has  been 
made  by  backward-looking  men  ten  thousand  times  and 
in  every  age,  of  supposing  that  texts  and  sacred  writ- 
ings are  the  tree  whose  fruit  is  religion — so  that  to 
change  the  words  is  to  endanger  religion  ;  when  in  fact 
religion  in  the  living,  divine  soul  of  man  is  itself  the 
tree,  and  texts  and  scriptures  are  simply  its  fruits  and 
flowers  and  leaves,  which  may  be  changed  or  shed,  and 
yet  the  tree  live  on  and  prosper,  bearing  other  foli- 
age and  flowers  and  fruit,  and  even  in  increasing  abund- 
ance. 

Errors  of  Copyists. — But  the  inaccuracies  that  are 
found  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Old  Testament  are  by 
no  means  all  due  to  the  want  of  vowel  points.  Many  are 
due  to  the  fact  that  it  had  to  be  copied  for  so  many  cen- 
turies by  hand.  We,  in  our  age  of  printing,  little  realize 
what  that  means.  It  is  hard  enough  to  be  accurate  now  ; 
what  must  it  have  been  then  ?  Says  Professor  Smith : 
"  The  Bible  had  to  be  copied  by  the  pen.  Let  us 
suppose,  then,  that  the  copyist,  without  any  special 
instruction  or  guide,  simply  sat  down  to  make  a 
transcript,  probably  writing  from  dictation,  of  the 
MS.  which  he  had  bought  or  borrowed.  In  the  first 
place,  he  was  almost  certain  to  make  some  slips,  either 
of  the  pen  or  of  the  ear ;  but,  besides  this,  in  all 
probability  the  volume  before  him  would  contain  slips 
of  the  previous  copyist.  Was  he  to  copy  these  mis- 
takes exactly  as  they  stood,  and  so  perpetuate  the 
error,  or  would  he  not  in  very  many  cases  think  himself 
able  to  detect   and  correct  the  slips  of  his  predecessor? 


THE   OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT  211 

If  he  took  the  latter  course,  it  was  very  possible  for  him 
to  overrate  his  own  capacity  and  make  a  new  mistake. 
And  so,  bit  by  bit,  if  there  were  no  control,  if  each  scribe 
acted  independently,  and  without  the  assistance  of  a  reg- 
ular school,  errors  were  sure  to  be  multiplied,  and  the  text 
would  be  certain  to  present  many  variations."  ^  Nor  is 
this  all.  "  Manuscripts  were  copied  and  recopied  by 
scribes  who  not  only  sometimes  made  errors  in  letters 
and  words,  but  permitted  themselves  to  introduce  new 
material  into  the  text,  or  to  combine  in  one  manuscript, 
without  mark  or  division,  writings  composed  by  different 
men."  ^  It  was  a  widespread  practice  to  make  on  the 
edges  of  manuscripts  notes  of  other  matter,  perhaps 
found  in  other  manuscripts,  that  seemed  relevant  and 
important.  A  subsequent  copyist  was  not  unlikely  to 
embody  these  in  the  text.  And  so  variations  and  corrup- 
tions of  the  original  text  multiplied.^ 

No  Early  "Received  Text." — It  should  be  remem- 
bered that  until  after  the  time  of  Christ  the  Jews  had  no 
received  text.  Every  collector  and  every  scribe  had  a  text 
of  his  own.  How  a  common  or  received  text  was  finally 
formed  is  not  certainly  known  ;  but  that  it  was  by  no 
adequate  critical  process  is  certain.     Instead  of  collecting 

*  "Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  53. 

2  Toy's  "  Judaism  and  Christianity,"  p.  72. 

'  ' '  The  man  who  had  bought  or  copied  a  book,  ...  if  he  could 
make  it  more  convenient  for  use  by  adding  a  note  here,  putting  in  a  word 
there,  or  incorporating  additional  matter  derived  from  another  source,  had 
no  hesitation  in  doing  so.  In  short,  every  ancient  scholar  who  copied  or 
annotated  a  book  for  his  own  use  was  very  much  in  the  position  of  a  mod- 
em editor,  with  the  difference  that  at  that  time  there  was  no  system  of  foot- 
notes, brackets,  and  explanatory  prefaces,  by  which  the  insertions  could  be 
distinguished  from  the  original  text."  Robertson  Smith's  "Old  Testament 
in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  107. 


212  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

all  possible  texts,  and  compiling  one  from  these,  according 
to  sound  critical  rules,  it  is  probable  that  the  scribes 
chose  some  single  manuscript  as  a  standard,  that  all  sub- 
sequent copies  were  made  from  this,  and  that  all  other 
existing  texts  were  as  far  as  possible  destroyed.  Thus, 
instead  of  giving  us  a  text  that  we  can  rely  upon,  by 
cutting  off  sources  of  comparison  they  made  it  impossi- 
ble ever  to  get  such  a  text.^ 

Corruptions  of  the  Present  Hebrew  Text. — As  soon 
as  we  understand  all  these  things  we  are  no  longer  sur- 
prised to  find,  as  we  do  find,  that  the  text  of  Micah  and 
Hosea  is  so  corrupt  as  in  many  places  to  be  absolutely 
unintelligible  ;  or  that  the  text  of  the  Books  of  Samuel  is 

'  "  We  can  be  sure  that  in  the  earlier  centuries  copies  of  the  Bible  circu- 
lated and  were  freely  read  even  by  learned  men  like  the  author  of  the  Book 
of  Jubilees,  which  had  great  and  notable  variations  of  text,  not  inferior  in 
extent  to  those  still  existing  in  the  New  Testament  MSS.  In  later  times 
every  trace  of  these  varying  copies  disappears.  They  must  have  been  sup- 
pressed, or  gradually  superseded  by  a  deliberate  effort,  which  has  been 
happily  compared  by  the  German  scholar  Noldeke  to  the  action  of  the 
Caliph  Othman  in  destroying  all  copies  of  the  Koran  which  diverged  from 
the  standard  text  that  he  adopted.  .  .  .  This,  then,  was  what  the  scribes 
did  :  They  chose  for  us  the  Hebrew  text  which  we  have  now  got.  [Of 
course,  it  is  the  consonant  outline  that  is  here  referred  to  ;  that  was  chosen  by 
the  scribes  soon  after  the  time  of  Christ,  as  here  described  ;  the  insertion  of 
the  vowel  points,  as  we  have  seen,  came  later.]  Were  they  in  a  position 
to  choose  the  very  best  text,  to  produce  a  critical  edition  which  could  justly 
be  accepted  as  the  standard,  so  that  we  lose  nothing  by  the  suppression  of 
all  the  divergent  copies  ?  .  .  ,  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  standard 
copy  which  they  ultimately  selected,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others,  owed  this 
distinction  not  to  any  critical  labor  which  had  been  spent  upon  it,  but  to 
some  external  circumstance  that  gave  it  a  special  reputation.  .  .  .  The 
very  errors  and  corrections  and  accidental  peculiarities  of  the  MS.  were 
kept  just  as  they  stood  .  .  .  when  it  was  chosen  to  be  the  archetype  of 
all  future  copies."  Robertson  Smith's  "Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish 
Church,"  pp.  74,  76,  80. 


THE   OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT  213 

scarcely  better;^   or   that   that  of   other   books  is  bad, 
though  perhaps  not  quite  so  bad. 

Fortunately,  two  centuries  or  so  before  Christ  the 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament  from  Hebrew  into 
Greek,  known  as  the  Septuagint,  was  made  in  Alexandria. 
This  has  enabled  us  to  correct  many  errors,  and  will 
enable  us  to  correct  more  still,  as  it  is  studied  more 
carefully — such  errors,  of  course,  as  have  crept  into  the 
Hebrew  text  since  that  translation  was  made.  By  com- 
paring our  Hebrew  text  with  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch, 
too,  some  errors  have  been  discovered  and  emended. 
And  yet,  all  this  is  really  very  little,  and  promises  little. 
We  are  still  in  doubt  about  great  numbers  of  passages 
all  through  the  Old  Testament,  and  probably  we  must 
always  remain  so,  for  want  of  any  means  of  ascertaining 
what  was  the  original  text.  Dr.  Samuel  Davidson,  a 
most  competent  critic,  in  his  "  Revision  of  the  Hebrew 
Text,"  cites  between  seven  and  eight  thousand  places 
where  manuscripts  and  versions  differ  from  our  text ;  and 
in  the  book  entitled  '*  Anglo-American  Bible  Revision," 
written  by  members  of  the  American  Revision  Committee 
in  1879,  D^*  Howard  Osgood,  professor  of  Hebrew  in  the 
Rochester  Baptist  Theological  Seminary,  suggests  ten 
thousand  as  the  probable  number  of  diversities  of  reading 
in  the  Old  Testament ;  moreover,  adding  at  the  end  the 
significant  sentence  :  "  It  should  be  remembered  that  if 
for  the  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  we  possessed  a 
critical  apparatus  as  full  as  that  for  the  New,  the  number 
of  diversities  might  be  largely  increased.** 

To  be  sure,  a  large  part   of  these  variations  are,  in 
themselves,   of    little    importance,   making    only    slight 

»  See  Driver's  "  Notes  on  the  Hebrew  Text  of  Samuel." 


214  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

changes  in  the  sense,  and  often  none  at  all.  And  yet 
many  are  important;  some  are  very  important.  But, 
whether  the  importance  be  great  or  small,  one  thing  at 
least  these  variations  do — they  show  beyond  a  possibility 
of  doubt  or  question  that  we  have,  and  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  can  have,  no  perfect  or  infallible  Old  Testament 
Hebrew  text. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

THE  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT :   ITS  FORMATION 
AND   PRESERVATION. — II. 

Greek  Manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament. — We 
pass  now  from  the  Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the 
Greek  of  the  New.  What  do  we  find  here?  Any  greater 
evidences  of  inerrancy  ?     Let  us  see. 

We  have  a  very  much  larger  number  of  manuscripts 
of  the  New  Testament  than  of  the  Old,  and  many  of 
these  go  back  much  farther.  Our  five  oldest  and  most 
valuable  Greek  manuscripts  are  the  Codex  Sinaiticus  and 
the  Codex  Vaticanus^  both  dating  from  the  fourth  cen- 
tury A.D. ;  the  Codex  AlexandrinuSy  and  the  Codex  Eph- 
raemiy  dating  from  the  fifth  century ;  and  the  Codex 
BezcBy  of  the  sixth  century. 

Imperfections. — These  manuscripts  are  all  written  in 
what  are  known  as  uncial  letters ;  that  is,  in  large  capitals. 
They  are  without  division  of  words  or  punctuation,  and 
in  part  without  accents  or  breathings.  These  absences, 
of  course,  introduce  something  of  an  element  of  uncer- 
tainty into  the  meaning  of  many  passages.  The  use  of 
the  uncial  letters  continued  for  some  centuries,  being 
gradually  displaced  by  what  is  known  as  the  cursive,  or 
running  hand,  about  the  ninth  or  tenth  century. 

Rude  and  imperfect  attempts  at  punctuation,  by  the 
use  of  occasional  simple  points  or  small  blank  spaces  left 
in  the  line,  began  to  be  made  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies.    But  such  full  punctuation  as  we  have  now  was 


2l6  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

not  introduced  until  modern  times,  after  the  invention 
of  printing.  Breathings  and  accents  (so  necessary  to  a 
perfect  Greek  text)  were  not  in  general  use  until  the 
seventh  century. 

We  are  likely  to  think  of  our  present  divisions  into 
chapters  and  verses  as  being  found  in  the  original  New 
Testament.  But  this  is  a  mistake  ;  the  chapter  divisions 
as  we  now  have  them  were  made  by  Cardinal  Hugo  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  our  present  verse  divisions 
first  appeared  in  an  edition  of  the  Latin  Bible  (the  Vul- 
gate) printed  by  Robert  Stephens  in  1555. 

Another  point  is  worth  mentioning  here.  We  are  apt 
to  think  of  the  titles  and  subscriptions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment books  as  coming  from  the  writers  of  the  books,  and 
hence  as  a  part  of  the  books  themselves.  But  as  a  rule, 
the  titles  and  subscriptions  in  the  New  Testament  are 
as  unreliable  as  those  in  the  Old.  The  oldest  Greek 
manuscripts  have  much  shorter  titles  than  the  later,  and 
"  the  subscriptions,  with  their  would-be  historical  infor- 
mation, are  not  only  late,  but  worthless."^  Those  ap- 
pended to  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  are  attributed  to 
Euthalius  of  Alexandria,  who  lived  in  the  last  half  of 
the  fifth  century. 

In  this  connection  it  is  instructive  to  notice  what  Dr. 
Philip  SchafI  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York, 
says,  in  his  "  Companion  to  the  Greek  Testament  and 
the  English  Version,"  which  he  wrote  as  president  of  the 
American  Bible  Revision  Committee.  Surely  here,  if 
anywhere,  we  shall  get  a  careful,  thoroughly  reliable,  and 
conservative  statement.  Speaking  of  the  Greek  text  as 
we  have  it,  Dr.  Schaff  says :  *'  Even  if  we  had  the  apos- 

'  Robertson  Smith  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica;  art.  '*  Bible." 


THE    OLD  AXD  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT.  21/ 

tolic  autographs,  there  would  be  room  for  verbal  criticism 
and  difference  in  interpretation,  since  they,  like  other 
ancient  books,  were  probably  written  as  a  continuous 
whole,  without  accents,  with  little  or  no  punctuation, 
without  divisions  of  sentences  or  words  (except  to  indi- 
cate paragraphs),  without  titles  or  subscriptions,  without 
even  the  name  of  the  author  unless  it  was  part  of  the 
text  itself.  '  Spirit  *  may  be  the  human  spirit  or  the 
divine  Spirit  (the  Holy  Ghost),  and  the  distinction  which 
we  mark  by  capitalizing  the  first  letter  cannot  be  decided 
from  an  uncial  manuscript  where  all  letters  are  capitals. 
The  punctuation,  likewise,  can  be  determined  not  by 
manuscript  authority,  but  only  by  the  meaning  of  the 
context,  and  is  often  subject  to  doctrinal  considerations, 
as  notably  so  in  the  famous  passage  affecting  the  divin- 
ity of  Christ  (Rom.  ix.  5),  which  admits  of  three,  if  not 
seven,  different  punctuations  and  constructions."  ^ 

How  Other  Errors  Crept  in. — We  found  in  the  last 
chapter,  that  many  errors  crept  into  the  Old  Testament 
manuscripts  in  connection  with  the  work  of  copying. 
The  same  is  true  here  also.  Indeed,  as  soon  as  there 
began  to  be  New  Testament  manuscripts  at  all,  there 
began  to  be  variations  of  texts.  Irenaeus,  as  early  as  the 
second  century,  alludes  to  the  variations  already  appear- 
ing. Origen  in  the  third  century  declares  that  matters 
are  growing  worse.  "  From  this  time  on,"  says  Professor 
Ezra  Abbot,  "  we  have  the  manuscript  text  of  each  cen- 
tury, the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  the  various  Oriental 
and  Occidental  versions,  all  testifying  to  varieties  of 
reading  for  almost  every  verse."  How  were  these  varie- 
ties caused  ?     Let  Professor  Abbot  answer :  **  The  early 

1  Pp.  88,  89. 


2l8  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

church  did  not  know  anything  of  that  anxious  clinging 
to  the  letter  which  characterizes  the  scientific  rigor  and 
the  piety  of  modern  times,  and  therefore  was  not  so 
bent  on  preserving  the  exact  words.  Moreover,  the  first 
copies  were  made  rather  for  private  than  for  public  use. 
Copyists  were  careless,  often  wrote  from  dictation,  and 
were  liable  to  misunderstand."  ^ 

Nor  was  this  all.  Here  a  manuscript  would  contain 
abbreviations ;  the  next  copyist  in  attempting  to  write 
them  out  would  be  very  likely  to  make  mistakes.  Here 
a  copyist  had  before  him  a  page  that  was  blotted,  or  else 
was  dimmed  by  age  and  wear  ;  he  guessed  at  the  doubt- 
ful words  as  best  he  could,  but  sometimes  guessed  wrong. 
Not  infrequently  copyists  made  what  they  regarded  as 
corrections  in  the  text,  in  the  interest  of  grammar  or  of 
style ;  or  to  remove  what  they  thought  to  be  historical 
or  geographical  or  other  errors ;  or  for  the  purpose  of 
harmonizing  the  Gospels ;  or  to  make  quotations  in  the 
New  Testament  agree  with  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint. 

It  was  common  for  owners  to  write  on  the  wide  mar- 
gins of  their  manuscripts,  notes  of  one  kind  or  another, 
or  matter  from  some  other  part  of  the  Bible,  or  even 
from  outside  the  Bible,  that  they  thought  would  throw 
light  on  the  text.  Of  course  these  marginal  writings 
were  liable  to  get  copied  later  into  the  text.  It  is  prob- 
ably in  this  way  that  we  must  account  for  the  first  eleven 
verses  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  John's  Gospel,  and  the 
last  twelve  verses  of  Mark's  Gospel,  neither  of  which 
passages  is  found  in  the  oldest  manuscripts. 

So,  too,  the  use  of  the  various  New  Testament  writings 
in  churches  caused  additions  sometimes  to  be  made.     For 

'  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopaedia  ;  art.  "  Bible  Text." 


TflE  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT.  219 

example,  if  a  passage  were  habitually  used  for  liturgical 
purposes,  it  would  be  not  unnatural  for  an  appropriate 
ending  to  be  attached  to  it.  It  was  in  this  way,  undoubt- 
edly, that  the  doxology  to  the  Lord's  Prayer  came  into 
being,  for  it  is  not  found  in  the  oldest  Greek  manuscripts. 
Or  if  a  passage  torn  from  its  context  were  used  for  an 
ecclesiastical  lesson,  it  might  seem  necessary  to  preface  it 
with  a  few  words  of  explanation,  and  it  would  be  easy 
and  natural  for  these  explanatory  words  by  and  by  to  get 
copied  into  the  text. 

Occasionally,  too,  interpolations  were  made  for  doc- 
trinal purposes.  Here  a  zealous  copyist,  in  transcribing 
a  passage,  thinks  it  would  be  a  great  advantage  if  its  doc- 
trinal teaching  were  a  little  more  explicit.  He  is  very 
sure  he  knows  what  it  was  meant  to  teach.  Why  should 
not  he  add  a  few  words  that  will  make  its  meaning  clearer? 
In  his  pious  zeal  he  does  so.  It  is  in  some  such  way  as 
this,  doubtless,  that  we  must  account  for  that  famous  pas- 
sage in  I  John  v.,  called  the  text  of  the  three  heavenly 
witnesses,  which  for  centuries  was  regarded  as  the  leading 
New  Testament  proof-text  in  support  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  but  which  the  Revised  Version  throws  out, 
as  scholars  have  long  known  it  ought  to  be  thrown  out. 

Various  Readings:  One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Thou- 
sand.— Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  the 
vast  number  of  different  readings,  which,  in  the  early  cen- 
turies, crept  into  the  Greek  text  of  the  New  Testament 
writings,  had  their  origin. 

How  many  such  different  readings  have  been  discov- 
ered ?  The  answer  is  startling.  It  is  quite  within  bounds 
to  say  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  Some  authorities 
put  it  higher  than  that ;  but  that  is  the  number  announced 
to  the  world  by  the  American  Bible  Revision  Committee. 


220  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

Of  course,  a  large  proportion  of  these  are  very  slight, 
hardly  worth  noticing ;  and  yet  very  many  are  not  slight, 
as  every  Greek  New  Testament  scholar  knows,  and  as 
even  one  who  is  not  a  Greek  scholar  can  see  for  himself 
by  simply  comparing  an  English  Revised  New  Testament 
with  the  common  version. 

A  New  and  Improved  Greek  Text. — One  of  the  ex- 
cellent results  of  modern  scholarship  has  been  the  prepara- 
tion of  a  Greek  New  Testament  text  greatly  superior  to 
that  which  was  in  the  hands  of  King  James*  translators 
when  they  made  our  common  English  version  in  1611. 
Since  that  date  all  our  oldest  and  most  valuable  manu- 
scripts have  been  discovered.  An  almost  incredible 
amount  of  toil  has  been  spent  in  examining  these,  and 
comparing  them  with  one  another  and  with  early  quota- 
tions from  the  Fathers.  In  this  way  a  vast  number  of 
errors  have  been  corrected,  and  little  by  little  a  Greek 
text  has  been  built  up  which  is  a  credit  to  modern  learn- 
ing. It  is  on  the  basis  of  this  improved  text  that  our 
English  Revised  Version  has  been  made ;  and  from  this 
source,  in  the  main,  arises  its  great  superiority  over  our 
common  version. 

Conclusion. — It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that 
we  now  have  a  Greek  text  that  is  perfect.  No  one  knows 
so  well  as  New  Testament  scholars  themselves  how  very 
far  from  perfection  it  is.  There  still  remain  thousands  of 
uncertainties,  thousands  of  conflicting  readings.  Nor  is 
there  any  ground  for  hope  that  it  can  ever  be  otherwise. 
With  the  still  further  advance  of  scholarship,  of  course, 
other  errors  will  be  corrected  and  further  improvements 
will  be  made.  But  in  the  nature  of  the  case  this  can  go 
but  a  little  way.  There  is  no  possible  basis  on  which  to 
build  a  perfect  text.     Go  back  as  far  as  we  can  in  any 


THE   OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXT.  22  1 

direction,  and  we  come  not  to  certainties,  but  to  uncer- 
tainties ;  not  to  readings  that  agree,  but  to  those  which 
conflict  in  numberless  ways.  If  anywhere  we  may  expect 
to  find  harmony  and  certainty,  it  is  in  our  oldest  and  best 
manuscripts.  But  is  there  certainty  here?  Do  these 
agree?  It  takes  only  a  very  little  investigation  to  find 
out.  But  let  the  learned  and  careful  Dr.  F.  H.  A.  Scriv- 
ener, than  whom  there  is  no  higher  or  more  conservative 
authority,  answer.  In  his  "  Introduction  to  the  Criticism 
of  the  New  Testament " ^  he  writes:  "The  evidence  of 
ancient  manuscripts  is  anything  but  unanimous  ;  they  are 
perpetually  at  variance  with  each  other,  even  if  we  limit 
the  term  ancient  within  the  narrowest  bounds — to  the 
five  oldest  copies.^  The  reader  has  but  to  open  the  first 
recent  critical  work  he  shall  meet  with,  to  see  them 
scarcely  ever  in  unison ;  perpetually  divided  two  against 
three,  or  perhaps  four  against  one.  All  the  readings 
these  venerable  monuments  contain  must,  of  course,  be 
ancient,  or  they  would  not  be  found  where  they  are  ;  but 
they  cannot  be  all  true.  So,  again,  if  our  search  be  ex- 
tended to  the  versions  and  primitive  Fathers,  the  same 
phenomenon  unfolds  itself,  to  our  grievous  perplexity  and 
disappointment." 

Thus,  while  we  have  a  Greek  New  Testament  text  of 
whose  general  excellence  we  may  well  be  appreciative — a 
text  much  purer  and  more  reliable  than  our  Hebrew  text 
of  the  Old  Testament — we  do  not  have  here,  any  more 
than  there,  either  freedom  from  errors  and  uncertainties, 
or  the  possibility  of  ever  attaining  such  freedom. 

'  Second  Edition,  London,  p.  464. 

'  Those  mentioned  above — the  Codices  SinaiticuSy  Alexandrinus ^  Vati- 
canusy  Ephrae'mi,  and  Bezcs. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

TRANSLATIONS:    GIVING  THE  BIBLE   TO  THE   PEOPLE. 

We  have  now  found  out  how  we  obtained  our  Hebrew 
Old  Testament  and  our  Greek  New  Testament.  The 
question  remains,  How  did  we  get  our  Bible  in  English? 
The  answer  to  this  is  an  interesting  and  a  many-sided  story, 
which  our  space,  however,  will  permit  us  to  trace  only  in 
the  briefest  way. 

If  the  different  languages  of  the  world  are  walls  that  tend 
to  separate  nations  and  races  from  one  another,  they  are 
\LOt  walls  that  cannot  be  scaled  or  broken  down. 

Fortunately,  literature  leaps  over  these  walls  easily  and 
goes  where  it  will.  It  is  able  to  do  this  by  means  of  trans- 
lations. Most  of  the  great  literature  of  the  world  is  trans- 
lated from  language  to  language  and  thus  becomes  the 
heritage  of  all  civilized  peoples.  It  has  been  pre-eminently 
so  with  the  Bible. 

We  have  already  gotten  a  glimpse  of  the  Septuagint, 
that  remarkable  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  into 
Greek  a  century  or  two  before  Christ,  which  for  many 
centuries  largely  took  the  place  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  even 
for  the  Jews  themselves,  and  which,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
we  find  the  New  Testament  writers  generally  quoting 
instead  of  the  original  Hebrew.  Of  course  this  wide  use 
of  the  Septuagint  grew  out  of  the  fact  that  for  some  cen- 
turies before  and  after  the  birth  of  Christianity  the  Greek 
tongue  was  the  prevailing  literary  language  of  the  circum- 
Mediterranean  world. 

By  degrees,  however,  Latin  began  to  take  the  place  of 


GIVING   THE  BIBLE    TO    THE  PEOPLE.  223 

Greek.  Since  Rome  held  all  the  peoples  of  southern 
Europe,  western  Asia  and  northern  Africa  under  her  sway, 
it  was  inevitable  that  her  language  should  come  into  wider 
and  wider  use.  At  first  this  use  was  confined  mainly  to 
civil  and  military  affairs ;  from  these  it  extended  into  com- 
merce and  trade;  and  then,  as  a  Latin  literature  of  im- 
portance was  created  by  such  eminent  writers  as  Virgil, 
Horace,  Cicero,  and  Livy,  it  began  to  be  employed  more 
and  more  for  literary  ends.  As  the  new  Christian  move- 
ment spread  throughout  the  Roman  Empire,  in  many  parts 
it  came  under  strong  Latin  influence ;  indeed,  the  churches 
of  the  West  seem  from  the  first  to  have  used  the  Latin 
tongue  mainly,  if  not  wholly.  Early  in  the  fourth  century 
the  Roman  Emperor  Constantine  proclaimed  Christianity 
to  be  the  official  religion  of  his  Empire.  The  result  of  this 
was  to  make  Latin  once  for  all  the  Christian  ecclesiastical 
language.  Of  course  under  these  circumstances  it  became 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  have  the  Bible  translated  into 
Latin. 

The  Vulgate.  —  The  earliest  Latin  translation  that  was 
complete  and  that  rose  into  historic  importance,  was  that 
known  as  the  Vulgate.  The  great  historic  personage  con- 
nected with  the  Vulgate  is  Jerome,  a  distinguished  scholar 
living  in  the  fourth  century  (340  or  342  to  420  a.d.)  who 
at  the  desire  of  Pope  Damasus  devoted  a  large  part  of  his 
life  to  critical  studies  and  labors  in  connection  with  the 
Bible,  making  his  home  for  many  years  in  Palestine. 
There  were  already  Latin  versions  of  the  New  Testament 
and  of  many  parts  of  the  Old,  but  they  were  very  im- 
perfect. Jerome  revised  the  New  Testament  critically  and 
began  upon  the  Old  Testament.  But  he  soon  saw  that 
what  was  wanted  in  connection  with  the  latter  was  a  new 
translation  from  the  original  Hebrew,  and  not   merely  a 


224  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

revision  of  translations  from  the  Greek  Septuagint.  To 
such  a  new  translation  he  devoted  the  later  years  of  his 
life.  The  Vulgate,  which  is  largely  his  work,  slowly  sup- 
planted the  earlier  Latin  versions,  and  by  the  beginning  of 
the  seventh  century  it  had  come  into  general  use.  At  the 
Council  of  Trent,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  it  was  made  the 
authorized  or  official  Latin  Bible  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church. 

The  historical  importance  of  the  Vulgate  is  very  great. 
Since  the  sixth  century  it  has  been  the  biblical  standard  in 
all  Catholic  Christendom.  The  monks  of  the  middle  ages 
made  hundreds  and  thousands  of  copies  of  it,  some  of  them 
of  great  beauty ;  and  great  numbers  of  these  manuscripts 
are  to-day  found  in  private  and  public  libraries  in  all  parts 
of  Europe  and  in  the  Orient.  The  Vulgate  was  early 
carried  to  England,  and  became  the  basis  of  Christian 
teaching  there,  and  the  first  English  Bible,  that  of  Wycliffe 
(1382)  was  translated  from  it.  The  Vulgate  was  the  basis 
of  the  Douai  translation  (1582  to  1610)  which  is  to-day  the 
official  English  Bible  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

But  if  in  the  days  when  Latin  was  a  living  tongue,  and 
the  prevailing  language  of  the  Roman  Empire,  there  was 
need  for  the  Bible  to  be  translated  into  Latin,  not  less,  in  a 
later  age,  when  Latin  had  become  a  dead  language,  was 
there  need  for  other  and  new  translations  of  the  Bible  to 
be  made  into  the  tongues  which  had  taken  the  place  of 
Latin. 

A  number  of  such  translations  were  made  during  the 
middle  ages,  and  even  earlier.  In  the  fourth  century 
Ulfilas  translated  nearly  the  entire  scriptures  into  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Goths.  Near  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury an  Armenian  version  of  the  Bible  was  prepared  for  the 
use  of  Christians  in  Asia-Minor ;  and  in  the  eighth  or  ninth 


GIVING    THE  BIBLE    TO    THE  PEOPLE.  225 

century  a  Sclavonic  version  for  the  use  of  the  Bulgarian 
Slavs.  No  fewer  than  sixteen  translations  of  the  Bible 
into  European  vernaculars  are  known  to  have  been  made 
between  the  fourth  and  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century. 

The  Reformation.  —  However,  it  was  not  until  nearly 
the  time  of  the  great  Protestant  Reformation  of  the  six- 
teenth century  that  the  work  of  translating  the  Bible  into 
the  languages  of  the  people  began  in  earnest  in  Europe. 
The  Protestant  Reformation  may  well  be  called  the  Child 
of  the  Bible.  Many  influences  united  to  create  the  Refor- 
mation ;  but  probably  the  most  important  was  the  revival 
of  Greek  learning,  which  set  great  numbers  of  scholars 
in  central  and  western  Europe  to  the  double  task  of 
studying  the  Bible  anew,  and  of  creating  better  transla- 
tions of  it  into  the  vernaculars. 

During  the  middle  ages  there  was  great  darkness  in 
Europe.  There  was  little  knowledge  of  any  kind  among 
the  people.  The  Bible  was  shut  up  in  monasteries  and 
churches.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  made  herself  its 
guardian  and  keeper,  and  such  knowledge  of  its  contents 
as  the  people  possessed  they  were  compelled  to  receive 
through  her  priesthood.  By  this  means  she  was  able  to 
preserve  and  to  increase  her  influence. 

Luther  and  his  co-workers  saw  that  if  the  power  of  Rome 
was  to  be  broken,  and  if  the  reform  of  Christianity  was  to 
be  effected,  an  indispensable  agency  in  bringing  about 
these  results  must  be  the  Bible.  The  Bible  must  be  un- 
chained. It  must  be  given  to  the  people.  Perhaps  the 
most  important  of  all  the  labors  of  Luther  was  his  transla- 
tion of  the  scriptures  into  the  German  tongue,  thus  open- 
ing the  door  for  the  Bible  to  enter  every  German  home. 
This  made  the  Reformation  a  popular  movement  as  other- 
wise it  could  never  have  been. 
IS 


226  ORIGIM  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Wycliffe.  —  The  first  translation  of  the  whole  Bible 
into  English  was  made  more  than  a  hundred  years  before 
Luther's  day,  by  John  Wycliffe,  who  has  been  very  truly 
called  the  "  Morning  Star  of  the  Reformation."  This  early 
translation  was  a  great  event  in  the  history  of  England, 
partly  because  it  was  the  precursor  of  a  long  line  of  splen- 
did biblical  work  which  was  to  result  in  giving  the  Bible  to 
the  English  people  in  ever  more  and  more  perfect  forms 
as  time  went  on,  even  down  to  our  day,  and  partly  be- 
cause, even  at  that  early  date,  it  dealt  a  heavy  blow  to 
Roman  Catholicism  in  England. 

Not  only  was  Wycliffe's  Bible  read  widely,  considering 
the  general  intellectual  condition  of  the  time,  but  knowl- 
edge of  its  contents  was  carried  more  widely  still  by  the 
travelling  preachers  whom  Wycliffe  sent  out  to  all  parts 
of  the  land,  to  read  and  explain  its  contents  to  the  people. 
In  this  way  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  be- 
came acquainted  with  the  Bible  as  they  had  never  been 
before,  and  thus  were  made  able  to  see  for  themselves  how 
far  the  Church  of  Rome,  with  its  hierarchy  and  its  pomp 
and  show,  had  wandered  from  the  simplicity  and  purity  of 
the  gospel. 

In  still  another  way  Wycliffe's  English  Bible  was  very 
influential.  It  fixed,  we  may  almost  say  it  created,  the 
English  language.  Previous  to  its  appearance  there  was  a 
great  number  of  English  dialects  but  hardly  an  English 
tongue.  But,  from  Wycliffe's  day  on,  the  language  of  his 
English  Bible,  the  one  great  book  of  the  people,  came  to 
be  recognized  as  the  language  of  England.  "  It  practically 
unified  the  variously  related  tongues  and  dialects  of  the 
land,  and  made  them  one  for  the  future  use  of  the  English 
speaking  world."  This  was  a  service  of  the  very  highest 
value  rendered  by  Wycliffe  and  his  Bible  to  England. 


GIVING   THE  BIBLE    TO    THE  PEOPLE.  22/ 

Wycliffe's  translation  was  a  splendid  beginning,  but  it 
was  only  a  beginning.  In  the  first  place  it  was  a  transla- 
tion from  the  Vulgate,  that  is  to  say,  it  was  at  best  only  a 
translation  of  a  translation ;  but  it  was  certain  that,  sooner 
or  later,  translations  made  from  the  original  sources  —  from 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  —  would  be  demanded  by  the 
English  people.  In  the  second  place,  Wycliffe's  Bible  was 
limited  in  its  circulation  as  compared  with  later  transla- 
tions, because  of  the  fact  that  it  came  into  existence  before 
the  age  of  printing.  It  could  be  multiplied  only  by  the 
slow,  tedious,  and  expensive  work  of  the  pen,  and  hence 
could  reach  comparatively  only  a  few. 

Tyndale.  —  From  Wycliffe  we  pass  on  to  William  Tyn- 
dale,  born  in  the  year  1484.  During  the  hundred  years 
intervening  between  the  two  men,  wonderful  things  have 
happened  in  Europe.  Mediaeval  civilization  was  broken 
up  and  is  disappearing.  The  intellectual  world  has  suf- 
fered such  an  upheaval  as  was  never  known.  Everywhere 
men  are  beginning  to  think  and  to  inquire.  The  clois- 
tered, antiquated,  and  fettered  learning  of  the  monasteries 
is  yielding  to  the  fresh,  new  knowledge  of  the  schools  and 
universities.  Perhaps  most  important  of  all  for  the  cause 
of  religion,  the  printing  press  has  been  invented,  and  is 
beginning  to  be  put  to  use  everywhere  for  the  multiplica- 
tion of  copies  of  the  scriptures.  One  of  the  very  first  tasks 
performed  by  Gutenberg,  after  his  new  invention  was  com- 
pleted, was  the  printing  of  the  Bible,  the  Latin  Vulgate, 
entire.  This  was  followed  soon  by  the  Hebrew  Bible. 
Erasmus,  the  great  scholar  of  the  Reformation,  prepared  a 
critical  edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testament,  and  this  the 
printing  press  quickly  gave  to  the  world. 

Tyndale  in  England  took  up  Wycliffe's  Bible  work 
where  the  latter  had  laid  it  down  ;   but  he  did  so  with  the 


228  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

great  advantage  of  the  use  of  the  printing  press.  He  saw, 
too,  that  the  time  had  come  when  a  better  version  of  the 
Bible  was  needed  than  that  of  WycHffe.  Wyclifife's  was  a 
translation  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  as  has  been  already 
said  ;  but  there  ought  to  be  one  made  directly  from  the 
original  Greek  and  Hebrew.  Such  an  improved  transla- 
tion Tyndale  determined  to  make.  Being  a  highly  accom- 
plished classical  scholar,  and  at  the  same  time  being 
master  of  a  singularly  concise,  graphic,  and  picturesque 
English  style,  he  was  remarkably  well  fitted  for  his  task. 

But  the  task  was  one  of  enormous  difficulty.  Besides 
the  labor  involved,  which  was  great,  there  was  the  opposi- 
tion which  conservatism  always  places  in  the  path  of  relig- 
ious advance.  Many  said  then,  as  many  say  now,  *'  What 
was  good  enough  for  our  fathers  is  good  enough  for  us  "  ; 
or,  "  If  we  give  men  a  new  translation  of  the  Bible  differing 
from  the  old  it  will  shake  their  faith  in  the  book  as  the 
Divine  word  of  God." 

The  leaders  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  for  the  most 
part  went  further,  and  opposed  Tyndale  because  they  did 
not  want  the  Bible  given  to  the  people  in  any  form. 

We,  in  these  days  of  religious  toleration,  little  realize  the 
state  of  things  in  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  On  the  continent  of  Europe,  Charles  V.  and 
Philip  n.  decreed  death  by  burning  to  any  one  who  pre- 
sumed even  to  read  the  Bible  in  a  language  which  he  could 
understand.^  In  England,  in  the  year  1414,  a  law  was  en- 
acted making  it  a  crime  punishable  with  forfeiture  of  prop- 
erty and  life  to  read  the  scriptures  in  the  mother  tongue 
(English).  As  late  as  1543,  Parliament  decreed  that  no 
laboring  man  or  woman  "  should  read  to  themselves  or  to 

1  Motley's  "  Ruse  of  the  Dutch  Republic,"  Vol.  T.  pp.  73,  228. 


GIVING   THE  BIBLE    TO    THE  PEOPLE.  229 

others,  publicly  or  privately,  any  part  of  the  Bible,  under 
pain  of  imprisonment."  It  was  under  such  conditions  as 
these  that  Tyndale  went  forth  to  his  self-imposed  task  of 
giving  to  the  people  an  improved  English  Bible,  —  a  task 
which  in  a  few  years  was  to  cost  him  his  life.  He  well 
knew  his  danger,  but  he  did  not  falter.  First  he  translated 
the  New  Testament,  producing  a  work  of  great  critical  and 
literary  merit  for  that  early  time.  But  in  order  to  accom- 
plish it  he  was  obliged  to  leave  England,  and  carry  on  his 
labor  wheresoever  he  could  find  shelter  in  Holland  and 
Germany.  His  translation,  completed  in  the  year  1523, 
was  printed  in  Germany,  whence  a  large  edition  was 
shipped  secretly  into  England,  hidden  by  friendly  mer- 
chants in  cases  of  goods. 

Having  finished  the  New  Testament,  Tyndale  undertook 
the  translation  of  the  rest  of  the  Bible.  In  1530  he  pub- 
lished a  translation  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  year  follow- 
ing another  of  the  Book  of  Jonah.  This  was  as  far  as  he 
was  allowed  to  go.  His  enemies  caused  his  arrest  and  im- 
prisonment. Being  brought  to  trial,  he  was  condemned  as 
a  heretic,  and  soon  after  burned.  His  last  words  were, 
"  Lord,  open  the  eyes  of  the  King  of  England."  His  books 
were  gathered  together  in  quantities  and  burned  also. 
But  his  influence  could  not  be  burned,  nor  could  the  im- 
pulse which  he  had  given  to  biblical  scholarship  in  England 
be  arrested. 

One  thing  for  which  Tyndale  will  forever  be  remem- 
bered, is  the  fact  that  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament 
has  formed  the  literary  basis,  so  to  speak,  of  all  the  more 
important  translations  that  have  followed.  Thus  our  New 
Testament  to-day  is  scarcely  more  than  a  revision  of  that 
of  Tyndale.  Its  style,  its  choice  of  words,  its  noble 
English,  in  the  main  are  Tyndale's.     As  a  historian  of  the 


230  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

subject  has  well  said  :  "  Such  an  influence  as  this  upon 
the  English  Bible  cannot  be  attributed  to  any  other  man  in 
all  the  past."  Nor  is  this  all.  To  influence  the  English 
Bible  as  Tyndale  did  was  to  influence  powerfully  the  whole 
literature  of  England.  "  Tyndale  set  a  standard  for  the 
English  language  that  moulded  in  part  the  character  and 
style  of  that  tongue  during  the  Elizabethan  era  and  all  sub- 
sequent time.  He  gave  the  language  fixity,  volubleness, 
grace,  beauty,  simplicity,  and  directness, "(thus  adding  his 
own  to  the  influence  of  Wycliffe,  and  carrying  to  complete- 
ness the  work  which  Wycliffe  had  begun).  Tyndale's  in- 
fluence, as  a  man  of  letters,  was  permanent  on  the  style 
and  literary  taste  of  the  English  people. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

OUR  ENGLISH   BIBLE. 

From  Tyndale's  day  the  work  of  giving  the  Bible  to  the 
English  people  in  their  own  tongue  went  forward  with  in- 
creased power.  To  be  sure  there  were  periods  of  great 
opposition.  Scholars  were  imprisoned  or  compelled  to 
fly  to  other  lands.  Editions  of  the  scriptures  were  seized 
and  committed  to  the  flames.  But  these  set-backs  were 
only  temporary.  The  mighty  forces  at  the  heart  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation  on  the  continent  were  operative 
also  in  England. 

During  the  three-quarters  of  a  century  following  Tyn- 
dale's death,  a  number  of  English  versions  of  the  Bible  of 
very  difl'erent  value  were  prepared  and  placed  before  the 
public.  Among  them  were  those  known  as  "  Coverdale's 
Bible  "  which,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  was  printed  and  dis- 
tributed with  the  royal  approval ;  "  Matthew's  Bible," 
which  was  really  the  translation  begun  by  Tyndale,  com- 
pleted by  John  Rogers  and  others ;  "  The  Great  Bible,"  a 
revision  of  the  preceding  and  its  issue  in  a  new  form ; 
**  The  Geneva  Bible,"  an  excellent  revision  of  "  The  Great 
Bible,"  made  by  English  scholars  who  had  been  obliged  to 
fly  to  Geneva  in  Switzerland  to  escape  from  persecution  by 
Queen  Mary;  "The  Bishops'  Bible,"  another  revision  of 
"  The  Great  Bible,"  made  by  a  considerable  number  of 
English  scholars,  nine  of  whom  were  Bishops  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  (hence  its  name);  and,  finally,  "The  Douai 
Bible,"  an  English  version  of  the  Vulgate  prepared  and 


232  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

printed  at  Douai,  Flanders,  for  the  use  of  Roman  Catho- 
lics in  England,  by  English  Catholics  who  had  migrated 
to  the  Continent  after  the  accession  of  Queen  EHzabeth. 

The  "Authorized  Version."  —  This  brings  us  to  the 
year  1611,  when  the  "  Authorized  Version  "  was  issued, — 
the  Bible  which  has  been  the  standard  of  all  English  speak- 
ing Protestant  peoples  for  almost  three  centuries. 

The  reason  for  the  preparation  of  this  version  was  that 
none  of  those  that  preceded  it  were  generally  satisfactory 
to  English  scholars.  Scholarship  was  advancing,  and  it 
was  believed  that  a  more  perfect  Englfsh  Bible  could  be 
prepared  than  any  as  yet  existing.  To  insure  this  desirable 
result.  King  James  I,  who  was  himself  something  of  a  Bible 
student,  summoned  a  company  of  fifty-four  (perhaps  more 
correctly  forty-seven)  biblical  scholars, — Anglicans  and 
Puritans,  some  of  them  laymen,  — and  gave  them  instruc- 
tions to  prepare  the  most  perfect  translation  (or  rather 
revision)  of  the  Bible  possible.  The  competency  of  the 
revisers  was  undoubted.  They  took  ample  time  for  their 
task  —  nearly  six  years.  The  excellence  of  the  result  is 
known  by  the  whole  English  speaking  world.  When  the 
new  version  was  completed,  of  course  the  influence  of  the 
King's  name  and  the  eminence  of  the  scholars  who  had 
produced  the  revision  brought  to  it  much  pubhc  favor. 
And  yet,  there  was  no  lack  of  opposition  from  the  conser- 
vatism of  the  time.  The  Geneva  Bible  long  maintained 
a  not  unsuccessful  rivalry  with  it.  More  than  half  a 
century  elapsed  before  the  new  work  came  into  general 
use. 

For  almost  three  centuries  the  Authorized,  or  King 
James'  Version,  of  161 1,  has  been  an  English  classic  as 
well  as  a  book  of  religion.  "  Its  simple,  majestic  Anglo- 
Saxon  tongue,  its  clear,  sparkling  style,  its  directness  and 


OUR  ENGLISH  BIBLE.  233 

force  of  utterance,  have  made  it  the  model  in  language, 
style,  and  dignity  of  some  of  the  choicest  writers  of  the  last 
two  centuries.  Added  to  the  above  characteristics,  its 
reverential  and  spiritual  tone  and  attitude  have  made  it  the 
idol  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  endeared  it  to  the  hearts 
of  millions  of  men  and  women." 

Why  should  not  this  noble  version  remain  the  satisfactory 
and  all  sufficient  English  Bible  for  all  time  to  come?  Why 
should  we  hear  of  further  translations  and  revisions  ?  Why 
should  we  actually  have  in  our  hands  to-day  a  Revised 
Version,  prepared  only  a  few  years  ago,  at  great  expense 
of  time  and  labor  and  money,  by  a  large  body  of  English 
and  American  scholars?  And  why  should  this  Revised 
Version  be  seeking  to  supplant  the  older  version  in  all  our 
Churches,  Sunday  Schools  and  homes? 

The  answer  is,  the  world  moves.  There  has  been  a  great 
advance  in  biblical  scholarship  since  1611.  The  patient 
and  arduous  labors  of  scholars  have  resulted  in  giving  us  a 
far  better  text,  both  of  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  and  of 
the  Greek  New  Testament,  than  King  James'  revisers  knew 
anything  about.  Indeed,  not  one  of  the  oldest  and  best 
Greek  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament,  which  all 
scholars  now  rely  upon  as  our  highest  authorities,  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  men  who  created  the  Authorized  Version ; 
every  one  has  been  discovered  since  that  version  was  com- 
pleted. Hence,  of  course,  it  is  easily  within  our  power 
to-day  to  prepare  a  version  of  the  Bible  far  more  true  to 
the  original,  and  therefore  far  more  correct,  than  was  pos- 
sible in  the  days  of  King  James.  These  facts,  even  if  there 
were  no  others,  would  abundantly  justify  the  creation  of 
the  Revised  Version. 

But  there  are  others.  Important  changes  have  taken 
place  in  the    English   language   since    161 1.      All   living 


234  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

languages  grow.  Growth  and  decay  are  as  much  the  law 
of  speech  as  of  trees.  Great  numbers  of  words  have  taken 
on  new  and  different  meanings  since  King  James*  day. 
Many  other  words,  and  not  a  few  forms  of  expression, 
have  become  entirely  obsolete.  Thus  we  see  that  there 
was  abundant  need  for  a  revision,  to  correct  these  imper- 
fections of  language  caused  by  time,  and  to  bring  the 
Bible  abreast  of  the  English  of  to-day.  Nor  is  this  revi- 
sion the  last  that  will  be  required.  Throughout  all  the 
future,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  other  revisions  will  be  needed 
from  time  to  time,  if  the  Bible  is  to  continue  a  really 
living  book. 

The  Revised  Version. — The  movement  to  produce 
our  present  Revised  Version  was  inaugurated  in  England 
in  the  year  1870,  by  officials  of  the  Established  Church. 
First  a  committee  of  fifty-four  eminent  and  widely  repre- 
sentative English  scholars,  and,  later,  another  committee 
of  thirty  equally  eminent  and  equally  representative  Amer- 
ican scholars,  were  appointed  to  perform  the  great  task. 
They  devoted  to  it  nearly  fourteen  years  of  careful,  consci- 
entious labor,  completing  and  pubhshing  the  revised  New 
Testament  in  188 1  and  the  Old  Testament  in  1885. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  American  Committee  con- 
tinued its  work  for  several  years  longer,  and  in  1901 
published  under  the  name  of  the  "  Standard  American 
Edition  of  the  Revised  Version,"  a  work  which  embodies 
the  fullest  results  of  the  labors  of  both  committees,  plus 
emendations  and  improvements  which  the  American  com- 
mittee deemed  important,  but  which  the  more  conservative 
and  less  free  British  committee  were  unwilling  to  sanction. 
While  the  English  Edition  is  and  will  continue  to  be  prized 
by  conservative  scholars,  the  American  Edition  seems  likely 
to  become  more  and  more  the  standard  English  Bible  for 


OUR   ENGLISH  BIBLE. 


235 


progressive  and  free  minds,  not  only  in  America,  but  in  all 
English  speaking  lands. 

It  will  take  time,  probably  a  long  time,  for  the  Revised 
Version  to  come  into  general  use ;  for  religious  progress  is 
always  slow.  But  the  superiority  of  the  Revised  over  the 
Authorized  is  so  great  that  sooner  or  later  the  former 
must  supplant  the  latter.  Let  us  notice  some  respects  in 
which  it  is  superior. 

1.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  Revised  Version  is 
based  upon  a  much  better  original  text,  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  New  Testament.  The  Revised  Version  of  the 
New  Testament  differs  from  the  New  Testament  in  the  Au- 
thorized Version  in  more  than  36,cxx)  places.  Of  course 
this  means  that  in  nearly  or  quite  36,000  instances  the 
Greek  text  upon  which  the  Authorized  Version  was  based 
was  faulty,  and  that  the  Revised  Version  is  able  to  correct 
these  errors  because,  in  the  larger  number  of  places,  its 
Greek  text  is  superior.  To  be  sure,  great  numbers  of 
these  corrections  are  of  only  slight  importance  because  the 
errors  are  trivial,  as  of  the  spelling  of  a  word  or  the  wrong 
use  of  a  Greek  accent.  But  if  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true 
that  others  are  of  great  importance. 

2.  The  Revised  Version  omits  passages  which  are 
known  to  be  spurious  but  which  the  Authorized  Version 
retains.  There  is  a  considerable  number  of  such.  That 
they  are  late  interpolations  is  seen  by  the  fact  that  our 
earliest  and  best  manuscripts  do  not  contain  them.  In 
some  cases  their  omission  or  retention  considerably  affects 
the  doctrinal  teaching  of  the  Bible. 

3.  The  Revised  Version  is  much  better  paragraphed 
than  the  Authorized.  The  old  mechanical  chopping  up 
of  the  scriptures  into  chapters  and  verses  of  proximately 
equal  length,  without  reference  to  the  sense,  thus  breaking 


236  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

in  pieces  sentences  and  paragraphs  which  ought  to  be  one, 
is  about  as  effective  a  means  of  preventing  a  right  under- 
standing of  the  Bible  as  could  be  devised.  The  Revised 
Version  removes  or  pushes  quite  into  the  back-ground 
these  mechanical,  arbitrary,  and  misleading  disruptions, 
and  introduces  in  their  stead  such  natural  divisions  as  the 
subject-matter  requires  to  make  its  meaning  plain. 

4.  The  Revised  Version  is  clear  from  those  misleading 
dates  which  so  long  have  disfigured  the  margins  of  the 
Authorized  Version.  It  is  now  possible  for  us  to  read  the 
Book  of  Genesis  without  being  informed  that  the  world 
was  created  in  the  year  4004  B.C.,  and  drowned  by  a 
universal  Flood  in  the  year  2349  B.C. 

5.  The  Revised  Version  is  also  free  from  the  old 
chapter-headings,  many  of  which  were  equally  false  and 
misleading.  In  some  editions  of  the  Revised  Version, 
chapter-headings  are  provided,  but  they  are  new,  and 
descriptive  of  what  the  chapters  really  contain. 

6.  Quotations  made  by  New  Testament  writers  from  the 
Old  Testament,  are  indicated  in  the  Revised  Version  as 
quotations.  This  makes  many  passages  much  more 
intelligible. 

7.  The  Revised  Version  (at  least  the  American  Revised 
Version)  leaves  out  all  obsolete  words,  giving  in  their 
place  words  in  current  use  to-day,  which  everybody  can 
understand.  The  number  of  improvements  of  this  kind 
which  it  introduces  into  the  Bible  is  very  large. 

8.  In  literary  form,  the  Revised  Version  is  vastly  supe- 
rior to  the  Authorized.  For  example,  all  those  books  and 
parts  of  books  of  the  Bible  which  are  poetry,  the  Revised 
Version  prints  as  poetry,  as  it  ought;  whereas  in  the 
Authorized  Version  they  always  have  been  and  still  are 
printed  as  prose.     This  change  is  a  very  great  improve- 


OUR  ENGLISH  BIBLE.  237 

ment  in  literary  form.  It  makes  the  Bible  more  attractive, 
and  it  helps  us  to  understand  what  it  really  is  as  literature. 
One  wonders  that  the  world  has  so  long  endured  the  old 
disfigurement  and  degradation  of  all  the  Bible's  poetical 
books  and  portions. 

These  illustrations  show  how  greatly  superior  is  the 
Revised  Version  to  that  which  it  is  designed  to  supersede, 
and  how  many  and  strong  are  the  reasons  why  all  lovers 
of  the  Bible  and  of  truth  should  give  it  their  support. 

And  yet  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  Revised  Version 
is  a  finahty.  Great  as  is  its  excellence,  no  scholar  claims 
that  it  is  perfect.  As  has  already  been  said,  there  will  be 
other  revisions.  There  will  be  other  translations.  The 
motto  must  still  be.  Forward  !  Indeed,  several  revisions 
and  translations  have  already  been  made  of  the  whole 
Bible  or  of  parts,  which,  in  some  of  their  features,  are  supe- 
rior to  the  Revised  Version,  and  which  may  well  be  used 
as  supplementary  to  that. 

In  1869,  Prof  George  R.  Noyes,  of  Harvard  University, 
published  a  translation  of  the  New  Testament  and  much  of 
the  Old,  which  was  of  great  excellence  and  permanent 
value. 

Much  more  recent  is  the  unique  "  Polychrome  Bible," 
so  called  because  the  eminent  scholars  who  projected  it 
have  sought  by  means  of  different  color  to  represent  the 
different  component  elements,  or  literary  "  strata,"  so  to 
speak,  of  the  various  books.  No  other  translation,  indeed, 
no  other  work  of  any  kind,  gives  the  student  so  clear  and 
vivid  an  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  biblical  writings 
are  composites,  mosaics,  collections  of  literary  and  historic 
material,  which  grew  by  repeated  compilations,  editings, 
and  additions  of  part  to  part,  as  this  notable  production. 

Another  translation  that  is  quite  worthy  of  notice  is  the 


238  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

"  Twentieth  Century  New  Testament,"  a  work  which,  by 
rendering  the  New  Testament  writings  into  the  language 
of  to-day,  imparts  to  them  new  vividness,  and,  to  many 
minds,  new  interest  and  power. 

In  this  connection,  Professor  Moulton's  **  Bible  for  Mod- 
ern Readers  "  may  be  mentioned.  This  work  is  not  a  new 
translation  (it  employs  the  English  Revised  Version),  but 
it  is  a  new  arrangement  of  the  sacred  writings,  prepared 
with  great  skill  and  literary  insight,  and  of  a  character  to 
make  the  Bible  intelligible  and  attractive  to  many  to  whom 
in  its  old  form  it  has  been  unattractive,  if  not  unintelligible. 
Possibly  the  literary  rearranging  and  editing  are  sometimes 
carried  so  far  as  to  seem  overdone  and  artificial,  but  at 
least  they  are  remarkably  suggestive.  Matthew  Arnold 
wrote  with  much  learning  and  intelligence  to  convince  us 
that  the  Bible  is  "  hterature,  not  dogma."  Professor  Moul- 
ton  edits  its  various  books  with  such  literary  skill  and 
charm,  and  places  them  before  us  in  such  attractive  literary 
form,  as  to  make  us  see  as  we  have  never  seen  before,  that 
they  are  primarily  literature,  —  many  of  them  beautiful, 
noble  and  great  literature.  Perhaps  no  other  scholar  has 
done  so  much  to  give  the  English  Bible  a  worthy  literary 
form,  and  to  lift  it  up  to  its  proper  place  as  a  great  literary 
classic. 

Such  are  some  of  the  signs,  appearing  in  many  quarters, 
which  indicate  that  a  greater  day  than  it  has  yet  known  is 
dawning  for  the  English  Bible.^ 


^  For  further  information  regarding  Bible  texts,  manuscripts,  transla- 
tions, revisions,  and  versions,  see  "  The  Ancestry  of  Our  English  Bible»" 
by  Prof.  Ira  A.  Price,  1907. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

THE  MORAL    AND   RELIGIOUS   PROGRESS    TRACEABLE    IN 
THE   BIBLE. 

It  is  common  to  think  of  the  religion  of  the  Bible  as 
being  all  one  and  the  same,  from  Genesis  to  Malachi,  and 
from  Matthew  to  Revelation.  The  various  scripture 
writers  are  commonly  read,  accepted,  and  quoted  as  if 
all  were  equally  wise,  as  if  all  held  and  taught  the  same 
views  of  truth,  as  if  all  were  on  a  level  as  to  reliability 
and  authority.  Nothing  in  the  Bible  itself  justifies  this 
conception,  the  influence  of  which  is  confusing  and  harm- 
ful in  the  highest  degree.  The  religion  taught  in  the 
Bible  is  all  "  one  and  the  same  "  only  in  the  sense  that 
the  acorn  and  the  oak  are  one  and  the  same,  or  that  the 
immaturity  of  the  child  and  the  wisdom  of  the  man  are 
one  and  the  same.  There  is  a  veil  over  the  eyes  of  every 
theory  of  biblical  interpretation  which  does  not  see  in 
the  religion  which  the  Bible  portrays  a  flowing  stream, 
broadening  and  deepening  as  it  advances.  The  Bible  is 
a  panorama  of  religious  progress.  It  deals  with  life,  not 
death ;  therefore  it  is  a  record  of  growth,  for  life  nev^er 
stands  still.  It  is  the  history  of  a  moral  and  religious 
development,  the  most  remarkable  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge,  carried  on  on  the  scale  of  a  whole  nation,  ex- 
tending not  through  a  single  generation  only,  but  through 
forty  generations — a  period  of  time  as  long  as  from 
Charlemagne  to  the  present  day — and  presenting  with 
photographic    exactness   every  phase   of  individual  and 


240  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

national  progress  from  the  crude  child-state  to  a  rich 
maturity.  It  is  this  that  makes  the  Bible  so  living,  so 
fresh,  so  inexhaustible,  so  full  of  interest  and  power — a 
book  for  all  times  and  all  peoples  ;  a  world-book  as  no 
other  volume,  sacred  or  profane,  is. 

This  religious  and  moral  growth  which  appears  in  the 
Bible  reveals  itself  in  many  different  forms  of  manifesta- 
tion. Let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  more  important  of 
these. 

Progress  in  the  Conception  of  God. — The  Old  Testa- 
ment portrays  the  growth  of  a  people  from  polytheism 
to  monotheism ;  from  the  worship  of  gods,  cruel  and 
vengeful,  represented  by  various  images,  up  to  a  very 
pure  and  lofty  spiritual  worship.  This  growth  is  harder 
to  trace,  because  the  books  do  not  stand  in  the  Bible  in 
the  order  of  their  dates,  and  some  that  deal  with  very 
early  times  were  written  late.  Still,  with  care,  we  are 
able  to  get  at  the  facts.  Little  in  the  Pentateuch  is  his- 
toric. That  the  Ten  Commandments,  however,  in  some 
form,  longer  or  shorter,  came  from  Moses,  may  be  asserted 
as  possible.  But  even  in  these  we  find  an  intimation  that 
other  gods  were  believed  in  and  recognized  besides  Jah- 
veh.  The  Decalogue  does  not  begin,  ''  I,  the  Lord,  am 
the  only  God."  It  begins,  "  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God." 
And  the  command  that  Jahveh  lays  upon  the  people 
seems  to  be  simply,  that  they  shall  worship  himy  not  the 
others.  He  is  their  God ;  he  has  done  much  for  them, 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  etc. ;  hence 
they  shall  be  true  to  him,  and  "  have  no  other  gods  be- 
fore "  him. 

All  through  the  Pentateuch,  and  in  many  other  parts 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Hebrew  word  Elohim  (a  plural 
form)  is  much  used  for  God.     Why  a  plural  .^     It  seems 


PROGRESS    TRACEABLE   IN   THE  BIBLE.  24 1 

to  be  a  reminiscence  of  a  time  when  it  was  common  for 
men  to  think  and  speak  of  "  gods,"  not  of  a  single  deity. 
And  such  passages  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  as,  "  Let  us 
make  man,"  "  Behold,  the  man  is  become  as  one  of  us^' 
"  Ye  shall  be  as  gods^'^  have  a  polytheistic  sound.  Even 
as  late  as  Elijah,  we  find  the  thought  of  that  prophet  to 
be,  not  that  Jahveh  is  the  god  of  the  whole  world,  or  the 
only  god,  but  that  he  is  "  God  in  Israeli  ^  And,  later 
still,  we  find  the  writer  of  the  eighty-sixth  Psalm  declar- 
ing :  "  Among  the  gods  there  is  none  like  unto  thee^  O 
Jahveh."  2 

Polytheism  and  idolatry  are  deeply  rooted  in  the 
thought  and  sentiment  of  the  early  Hebrew  people.  To 
eradicate  them,  and  to  educate  the  nation  up  to  the 
higher  religion  which  will  come  by  and  by,  the  seed  of 
which  has  been  planted  by  Moses,  will  take  many  cen- 
turies. 

The  Book  of  Judges  tells  us  that  when  the  Israelites 
entered  the  land  of  Canaan,  they  proceeded  almost  at 
once  to  engage  in  the  worship  of  the  peoples  who  lived 
there — the  Canaanites,  the  Hittites,  and  the  Amorites^ — 
probably  in  addition  to  their  worship  of  their  own  God 
Jahveh.  The  same  book  also  tells  us  that  at  that  time 
graven  and  molten  images,  ephods  and  teraphim,  were 
part  of  an  equipment  of  a  priest  of  Jahveh.*  Even  King 
Solomon  offered  sacrifices  unto  "Ashtoreth  the  goddess 
of  the  Zidonians,  and  Milcom  the  abomination  of  the 
Ammonites,"  and  **  built  a  high  place  for  Chemosh  the 
abomination  of  Moab,  and  for  Molech  the  abomination 
of  the  children   of  Ammon."^     Indeed,  of  thirty-seven 

'  I  Kings  xviii.  36.  *  Verse  8.  '  Judg.  iii.  5,  6. 

*  Judg.  xvii.  3-5,  13.  »  I  Kings  xi.  5,  7. 

16 


242  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,  beginning  with  Saul  and  end- 
ing with  Josiah,  thirty-one  were  open  worshippers  of  other 
gods  than  Jahveh.  When  we  read  of  the  worship  of  the 
golden  calf  in  the  wilderness,  in  the  time  of  Aaron,  we  are 
apt  to  think  of  that  as  a  solitary  instance  in  Hebrew  his- 
tory ;  but  the  truth  seems  to  be,  that  this  form  of  worship 
was  practiced  even  as  late  as  the  time  of  Jeroboam  11.^ 
Kuenen  argues  with  great  force,  that  for  several  centu- 
ries, indeed  until  near  the  time  of  the  captivity,  Jahveh 
was  extensively  worshipped  under  the  form  of  a  bull.  '^ 
And  on  the  general  subject  of  the  early  religion  of 
the  Jews,  he  says:  "At  first  the  religion  of  Israel  was 
polytheism.  During  the  eighth  century  before  Christ 
the  great  majority  of  the  people  still  acknowledged  the 
existence  of  many  gods,  and,  what  is  more,  they  wor- 
shipped them.  And  we  can  add  that  during  the  seventh 
century  and  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  Babylonish 
exile  (586  B.C.)  this  state  of  things  remained  unaltered. 
Jeremiah  could  say  to  his  contemporaries  without  fear  of 
contradiction:  'According  to  the  number  of  thy  cities 
are  thy  gods,  O  Judah  !  *  "  ^ 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  polytheism,  idolatry,  and 
the  use  of  images  were  not  finally  put  away,  and  the 
popular  religion  of  Israel  did  not  become  really  and 
permanently  monotheistic,  until  the  period  of  the  Exile. 
So  great  was  the  task,  and  so  long  an  education  did  it 
require,  to  make  over  the  religious  conceptions  and  sen- 
timents of  a  people. 

Nor  was  the  development  simply  up  to  monotheism.  What 
was  even  more  important,  it  was  up  to  ^/^/^^/ monotheism. 


'  See  I  Kings  xii.  26-33. 

^  "  Religion  of  Israel,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  235-6,  345-6. 

'  Idem.  vol.  i.,  p.  223. 


PROGRESS   TRACEABLE  IN   THE  BIBLE.  243 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to-day  to  understand  ail  that  this 
means — difficult  because  we  so  little  realize  how  low  was 
the  popular  conception  of  the  character  of  God  enter- 
tained by  the  Hebrew  people  at  the  beginning  of  their 
national  career.  In  those  parts  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  portray  the  earlier  thought  and  life,  God  is  not 
only  represented  as  walking,  talking,  having  bodily  form  : 
coming  down  from  the  sky  to  see  what  men  are  doing ; 
**  wrestling  with  one  patriarch,  eating  veal  and  cakes  with 
another ;  "  contending,  and  for  a  while  in  vain,  with  the 
magic  of  other  gods;  but  he  is  portrayed  as  getting  angry, 
being  jealous,  repenting,  deceiving,  sanctioning  fraud, 
commanding  shocking  cruelties,  exhibiting  almost  every 
passion  and  imperfection  of  man.  Not  only  are  vast 
numbers  of  cruel  and  bloody  animal  sacrifices  offered  to 
him,  but  there  are  distinct  traces  of  human  sacrifice. 
The  story  of  Abraham,  commanded  by  Jahveh  to  offer 
up  his  son  Isaac,  is  familiar  to  all.  True,  in  this  case  we 
are  told  that  the  sacrifice  was  not  actually  made,  but  we 
have  a  definite  command  from  Jahveh  to  make  it,  and 
we  see  Abraham  attempting  in  earnest  to  carry  out  the 
command.^ 

A  case  in  which  the  victim  was  actually  slain  is  that 
of  Jephthah's  daughter.  Jephthah  promises  Jahveh  a 
human  sacrifice,  and  fulfils  that  promise  in  the  immola- 
tion of  his  own  child.  ^  Says  Kuenen  :  **  Human  sacrifice 
occurs  not  unfrequently  in  the  worship  of  Jahveh.  When 
Micah  introduces  one  of  his  contemporaries,  a  worship- 
per of  Jahveh,  speaking  thus  : 

*  Shall  I  give  my  first-born  for  my  transgression. 
The  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul  ? ' 

*  Gen.  xxii.  '  J^<ig«  ^i-  30-40- 


244  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE, 

it  IS  undoubtedly  implied  that  in  his  day  such  a  sacn- 
fice  was  not  looked  upon  as  at  all  unreasonable.  Human 
sacrifice  appears  as  an  element  of  the  bull-worship  in  the 
kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes  ;  David  seeks  to  avert  Jahveh's 
anger,  by  the  death  of  Saul's  progeny  ;  ^  Samuel  hews 
Agag  the  king  of  the  Amalekites  in  pieces  before  the 
face  of  Jahveh  at  Gilgal."  ^ 

It  was  from  such  conceptions  of  God  and  worship  as 
are  portrayed  here,  that  the  development  of  the  He- 
brew religion  proceeded.  Are  we  shocked  when  we  thus 
discover  pictures  of  a  God  who  is  almost  without  moral 
character,  and  who  is  pleased  with  the  sacrifice  of  human 
life  ?  Let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  here  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Bible's  religion,  not  at  its  end.  It  is  the  glory 
of  the  Bible  that  it  gives  us  the  record  of  a  people's 
progress  from  all  this,  up  to  the  God  of  the  Prophets, 
whose  law  is  righteousness,  and  whose  service  is  doing 
justly  and  loving  mercy  ;  indeed,  from  all  this  up  to  the 
God  of  Jesus,  whose  name  is  Our  Father,  and  whose  wor- 
ship is  love. 

Growth  of  the  Belief  in  Immortality. — We  find  in  the 
Bible,  as  we  advance  from  the  earlier  to  the  later  writings, 
great  progress  of  thought  regarding  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality. The  New  Testament  is  full  of  this  doctrine. 
As  to  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  a  question  among  scholars 
whether  it  can  be  said  to  be  taught  there  or  not.  Most 
of  the  books,  particularly  the  older  ones,  are  silent  on  the 

'  2  Sam.  xxi.  I-14. 

'  I  Sam.  XV.  33.  On  the  general  subject  of  the  offering  of  human  sacri- 
fices among  the  ancient  Hebrews,  see  Kuenen's  "  Religion  of  Israel,"  vol. 
i.  pp.  237,  250-252  ;  Kalisch's  "Commentary  on  Leviticus,"  Part  I.,  pp. 
248-253  ;  "  Bible  for  Learners,"  vol.  i.  pp.  26,  146-149,  319,  320,  410  ;  vol. 
ii.  16,  17,  299,  300.  402,  509. 


PROGRESS   TRACEABLE   IN   THE  BIBLE.  245 

subject.  The  religion  of  ancient  Israel  was  pre-eminently 
a  religion  of  this  world.  Its  interests  were  here ;  it 
looked  for  its  rewards  and  its  penalties  here.  In  some 
quarters  there  appears  to  have  been  thorough-going  dis- 
belief in  any  hereafter  for  man.  Says  the  skeptical 
author  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes :  "  The  dead  know 
not  anything,  neither  have  they  any  reward."  "  That 
which  befalleth  the  sons  of  men  befalleth  beasts  ;  even 
one  thing  befalleth  them :  as  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the 
other;  yea,  they  have  all  one  breath;  so  that  a  man  hath 
no  pre-eminence  above  a  beast."  Dean  Stanley  thinks 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  is  not  taught  in  any  except 
the  later  books ;  in  these,  however,  he  is  sure  that  he 
finds  it.  Professor  Toy  examines  the  principal  passages 
in  the  Old  Testament  which  are  claimed  as  teaching  the 
doctrine,  and  decides  that  if  we  mean  by  immortality  a 
conscious,  intelligent,  active  life  of  hopes  and  interests, 
rewards  and  punishments,  then  none  of  these  passages 
teach  it.^  What  he  finds  taught  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  believed  in  generally  among  the  ancient  Jews,  is  an 
existence  for  man  beyond  the  grave,  but  so  shadowy, 
unsubstantial,  and  devoid  of  pleasure,  that  it  ought  not 
to  be  called  immortality.  He  finds  what  he  calls  *'  the 
old  Semitic  conception  of  a  colorless  existence  in  Sheol — 
a  gloomy  underworld  with  gates  and  bars,  tenanted  by 
joyless  shades,  whose  existence  runs  a  gray,  uncheckered 
course,  unillumined  by  the  ordinary  emotions  of  men, 
unstimulated  by  their  ordinary  aims  and  hopes,  severed 
from  the  life  of  the  great  world  above,  and  cut  off  from 
living  communion  with  God."^  He  believes  that  the 
first  Jewish  book  that  teaches  the  doctrine  of  immor- 

*  "Judaism  and  Christianity,"  pp.  379-382. 


246  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

tality  in  any  adequate  sense  is  the  apocryphal  Wisdom 
of  Solomon,^  written  about  100  B.C.,  a  book  which,  by 
what  seems  a  strange  and  unaccountable  unwisdom,  was 
not  allowed  a  place  in  the  Canon.  The  Book  of  Daniel, 
written  about  165  B.C.,  seems  to  teach  the  doctrine  in  a 
way;  and  most  scholars  hold  that  certain  passages  in  the 
Psalms  teach  it  somewhat  clearly. 

But,  whatever  our  decision  may  be  about  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, when  we  pass  on  to  the  New  all  doubt  is  removed. 
Here  we  find  the  doctrine  of  a  life  to  come,  shining  from 
almost  every  page.  Perhaps  no  single  New  Testament 
teaching  is  more  conspicuous,  as  certainly  none  is  more 
inspiring. 

Rise  of  the  Belief  in  Satan. — It  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  if  change,  or  the  coming  of  what  is  new  into  the  Bible, 
does  not  always  indicate  progress.  The  advent  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  existence  of  Satan  is  a  conspicuous  case 
in  point.  This  doctrine  is  absent  from  those  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  which  we  know  to  be  the  oldest ; 
namely,  the  eighth  and  seventh  century  prophecies.  In- 
deed, it  appears  only  in  the  books  written  during  or  after 
the  Captivity.  Even  if  we  admit  that  the  serpent  in  the 
Genesis  paradise  story  ought  to  be  identified  with  Satan, 
we  have  here  no  exception,  for  it  should  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  Book  of  Genesis  was  probably  not  completed  be- 
fore about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ, 
a  century  after  the  Captivity  closed.  Satan  appears  in 
the  Books  of  Job,  Zechariah,  and  Chronicles;  but  these 
are  all  late  writings.  Belief  in  the  existence  of  such  a 
bad  being — the  foe  of  God,  the  accuser  of  the  good,  the 
tempter  of  men  to  evil — seems  to  have  come  into  Judaism 

'  "Judaism  and  Christianity,"  p.  378.  '  Idem,  p.  386. 


PROGRESS   TRACEABLE   IN  THE  BIBLE.  247 

from  the  religion  of  the  Persians,  through  contact  with  that 
people  during  or  after  the  Exile. 

In  the  appearance  of  this  new  belief  we  find  an  in- 
structive explanation  of  that  strange  contradiction  which 
appears  between  the  two  accounts  of  the  numbering  of 
Israel  found  in  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  Chronicles.^ 
The  record  in  Samuel  tells  us  that  it  was  the  Lord  who 
tempted  David  to  do  the  numbering ;  that  in  Chronicles 
says  it  was  Satan,  The  explanation  is  evidently  this : 
Samuel  is  the  older  book  by  two  or  three  centuries.  At 
the  time  it  was  written  the  belief  in  such  a  being  as  Satan 
was  unknown,  and  evil,  as  well  as  good,  was  referred  to 
God  as  its  author.  But  by  the  time  Chronicles  was  com- 
piled, belief  in  Satan  had  come  in,  and  he,  not  God,  was 
now  held  to  be  the  instigator  of  evil.  Hence  an  event 
which  in  the  earlier  book  was  naturally  ascribed  to  God, 
was  now  as  naturally  ascribed  to  Satan. 

Belief  in  the  existence  of  Satan  appears  in  many  of  the 
New  Testament  books ;  in  some,  like  the  Apocalypse,  it 
is  prominent. 

Thus  we  see  that  change  in  thought  found  in  the  Bible 
does  not  always  mean  advance  in  truth  ;  it  may  mean 
temporary  retrogression,  or  the  coming  in  of  a  supersti- 
tion. The  main  movement,  however,  in  both  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New,  is  undoubtedly  progressive,  in 
the  direction  of  larger  and  higher  truth  and  life. 

Moral  Progress. — Perhaps  no  form  of  advance  seen  in 
the  Bible  is  more  striking  than  that  which  appears  in  its 
moral  teachings.  To  be  sure,  we  are  very  likely  to  be 
blinded  to  this,  by  seeing  at  the  beginning  of  the  volume, 
as  we  read  it,  the  tale  of  a  paradise  garden  and  of  a  sup- 


'  2  Sam.  xxiv.  i,  and  i  Chron.  xxi.  i. 


248  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF    THE   BIBLE. 

posed  perfect  man  and  woman,  and  such  idyllic  pictures 
of  life  as  those  of  the  patriarchs.  But  as  soon  as  we  put 
all  this  apart  by  itself,  as  we  must,  as  legend  and  poetry, 
and  not  historic  fact,  and  remember  that  our  earliest 
reliable  picture  of  Hebrew  life  is  that  which  we  have  in 
the  Books  of  Judges  and  Samuel,  then  we  are  prepared 
to  discover  the  moral  progress  which  comes  so  clearly  to 
view  in  the  career  of  Israel. 

The  Israelitish  people  when  they  emerge  from  the 
shadow  of  the  pre-historic  time — say  in  the  eleventh  or 
twelfth  century  before  Christ — have  advanced  as  yet 
hardly  beyond  a  half-civilized  state.  They  have  no  set- 
tled government ;  lawlessness  and  cruelty  abound.  We 
have  only  to  read  the  accounts  that  come  down  to  us 
from  those  times,  of  assassinations  like  those  committed 
by  Ehud  ^  and  Jael ;  ^  brutalities  like  those  practiced  upon 
Adoni-bezek  and  the  seventy  kings ;  ^  debaucheries  like 
those  of  Samson;*  Samuel's  words  to  Saul  as  he  went 
away  to  battle:  "Spare  no  Amalekite,  slay  man  and 
woman,  infant  and  suckling;"^  and  the  wholesale  massa- 
cres of  women  and  innocent  children  reported  in  connec- 
tion with  the  conquest  of  Canaan,^  to  see  what  a  long 
road  Israel  had  to  travel  before  reaching  the  noble  ethics 
of  the  Prophets  and  Job  and  Ecclesiasticus,  not  to  say  of 
Paul  and  Jesus. 

Perhaps  no  one  ever  pictured  that  long  and  splendid 
advance  more  vividly  than  Jesus  himself,  when,  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  he  said:  **  Ye  have  heard  that  it 
hath  been  declared  [by  them  of  old  time],  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor,  and  hate  thine  enemy.     But  I  say  unto 

'  Judg.  iii.  21.         •  Judg.  iv.  21.        '  Judg.  i.  6,  7. 

*  Judg.  xvi.  '  I  Sam.  xv.  3. 

•  Deut.  XX.  16, 17  ;  Josh.  viii.  18-29  ;  x.  28-41  ;  Num.  xxi.  35  ;  xxxi.  17,  18. 


PROGRESS   TRACEABLE  IN   THE  BIBLE.  249 

you,  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do 
good  to  them  that  hate  you.'*  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it 
hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth :  but  I  say  unto  you,  That  ye  resist  not  evil."  If 
we  turn  to  the  Book  of  Exodus,  where  this  last  passage 
quoted  by  Jesus  stands,  we  find  it  reading,  in  its  fuller 
form,  "  Eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for  hand,  foot 
for  foot,  burning  for  burning,  wound  for  wound,  stripe 
for  stripe ;  '*  ^  or  if  we  turn  to  Deuteronomy,  we  find  a 
similar  passage :  "  Thine  eye  shall  not  pity  ;  but  life  shall 
go  for  life,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for  hand, 
foot  for  foot."  ^  From  such  teachings  as  these,  to  Christ's 
"  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you  ;  "  or  to 
Paul's  **  If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him ;  overcome  evil 
with  good,"  is  about  as  long  an  ethical  journey  as  it  is 
possible  for  us  to  conceive. 

No  intelligent  and  honest  man  can  deny  that  sanction 
is  to  be  found  in  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  for  slavery, 
for  polygamy,  for  revenge,  for  deceit,  for  the  putting  to 
death  of  witches,  for  war,  for  the  indiscriminate  slaughter 
of  captives  taken  in  war,  and  for  other  evils.  Are  these 
evils  good,  then  ?  Certainly  not.  Then  must  we  throw 
the  Bible  away  as  an  untrustworthy  guide  ?  An  untrust- 
worthy guide  it  most  certainly  is  if  we  see  in  it  no  growth, 
and  accept  all  parts  of  it  as  of  equal  value  and  authority. 
It  is  this  kind  of  interpretation  that  has  in  all  ages  turned 
it  into  an  armory  from  which  to  draw  texts  for  the  de- 

'  Exod.  xxi.  24,  25.  It  is,  perhaps,  worthy  of  notice  that  this  is  part  of 
what  is  known  to  scholars  as  the  "  Book  of  the  Covenant  "  (Exod.  xx.-xxiii.), 
which  is  undoubtedly  an  ancient  code,  going  back,  perhaps,  nearly  or  quite 
to  the  time  of  Moses,  which  has  been  preserved  and  inserted  into  the  Penta- 
teuch at  this  point. 

'  Deut.  xix,  21. 


250  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

fence  of  every  kind  of  cruelty,  superstition,  and  wrong. 
It  is  only  as  we  recognize  it  as  a  book  of  growth  and 
progress,  and  take  as  our  guide  its  best  and  highest 
teachings,  not  its  lowest  and  worst,  what  it  has  grown  to, 
not  what  it  has  grown  from,  that  it  becomes  a  safe  and 
valuable  guide. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

RELIGIOUS  EVOLUTION:    A   HISTORICAL   SUMMARY. 

Perhaps  the  whole  subject  of  the  moral  and  religious 
progress  traceable  in  the  Bible,  or,  to  put  it  in  other  words, 
of  the  evolution  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  may  be  best  shown 
by  a  brief  historical  summary.  For  such  a  summary  a  few 
introductory  words  will  prepare  the  way. 

Under  the  old  views  of  the  Bible,  that  is,  under  the 
views  which  prevailed  before  the  advent  of  modern  bib- 
lical scholarship,  or  what  is  known  as  the  higher  criticism, 
it  was  not  possible  to  find  in  the  Bible,  or  at  least  in  the 
Old  Testament,  anything  which  could  properly  be  called 
moral  and  religious  progress  on  any  considerable  scale; 
there  was  no  evidence  that  the  religion  of  Israel  was  an 
evolution. 

This  was  because  we  were  under  the  delusion  of  radi- 
cally false  ideas  as  to  the  origin  and  age  of  many  of  the 
biblical  books,  and  consequently  fundamentally  erroneous 
views  of  Israel's  national  and  religious  history.  Much  that 
was  really  earliest  we  thought  latest,  and  much  that  was 
really  latest  we  thought  earliest.  Of  course  this  created 
confusion  everywhere.  The  old  view  of  the  Bible,  founded 
on  tradition  and  imagination,  which  regarded  the  world 
as  created  six  thousand  years  ago  (instead  of  millions  of 
years,  as  we  now  know),  and  Genesis  as  the  earliest  book 
of  the  Old  Testament  (instead  of  one  of  the  latest),  and  the 
so-called  Mosaic  laws  as  written  by  Moses  (instead  of  seven 
or  eight  centuries  after  Moses'  death),  distorted  and   re- 


2  52  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

versed  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  people  in  much  the  same 
way  that  the  history  of  a  man  would  be  distorted  and  re- 
versed if  we  had  the  doings  of  his  childhood  presented  to 
tis  as  those  of  his  mature  years,  and  the  events  of  his  old 
age  represented  as  those  of  his  youth. 

Not  until  the  new  biblical  scholarship  came  on  the  scene 
was  there  any  light.  But  the  patient  researches  of  a  hun- 
dred years,  carried  on  in  many  lands,  has  at  last  brought 
order  out  of  chaos.  It  has  given  us  the  essential  facts  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  various  biblical  writings.  As  a  result, 
we  now  know  which  are  history  and  which  are  not.  We 
know  which  are  earlier  and  which  later  in  date.  We  can 
now  trace  the  real  history  of  the  Hebrew  religion  and  the 
Hebrew  people,  —  not  indeed  from  Adam  and  a  Paradise 
garden,  or  from  Noah,  or  even  from  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob ;  for  all  the  far-off  region  represented  by  these 
names  we  now  understand  is  one  of  legend,  tradition, 
and  dream,  —  but  we  can  trace  it  with  a  considerable  de- 
gree of  certainty  from  Moses,  and  with  much  clearness 
from  David  and  Solomon,  on  and  down  to  the  age  of  the 
New  Testament. 

And  what  does  that  history  show?  Confusion,  deca- 
dence, retrogression  ?  No.  It  shows  order,  sequence, 
continuity,  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  historic  cause  and 
effect,  and  a  remarkable  progress.  The  progress  was  not 
uniform,  it  was  not  uninterrupted,  —  no  human  progress 
ever  is,  —  but  it  was  real,  persistent,  never  long  checked, 
and  in  its  results  extraordinary.  We  now  see  that  the 
religion  of  the  Hebrew  people  in  Palestine  was  a  growth 
as  natural  as  the  growth  of  a  tree ;  a  development  which 
at  last  we  are  able  to  trace  almost  as  clearly  as  we  can 
trace  the  development  of  the  Papacy  in  the  middle  ages, 
or  of  Protestantism  in  modern  times ;    an  evolution  of  un- 


A   HISTORICAL  SUMMARY.  253 

surpassed  interest  which  has  exerted  an  influence  upon  the 
world  probably  greater  than  any  other  religious  evolution 
known. 

We  are  now  ready  for  our  historic  epitome  or  summary. 
If  we  find  it  taking  us  to  some  slight  extent  over  ground 
already  trodden,  at  least  it  will  be  by  a  somewhat  different 
path,  and  with  somewhat  different  ends  in  view. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  found  moral  and  religious 
evolution  in  the  Bible  to  be  a  fact,  —  in  the  light  of  the 
new  biblical  knowledge,  a  conspicuous  fact.  In  the  brief 
epitome  which  follows,  the  aim  will  be  to  trace  the  various 
steps  of  that  evolution  in  their  order,  and  to  obtain  a  con- 
nected view  of  the  whole. 

Earliest  Beginnings  —  before  Moses.  Conditions 
from  which  the  Evolution  Arose.  —  The  earliest  an- 
cestors of  Israel  of  whom  we  are  able  to  get  any  trace 
are  Semitic  tribes,  —  seemingly  some  of  them  held  in 
temporary  bondage  in  Egypt,  perhaps  others  wandering 
nomads  in  Arabia.  Their  civilization  is  low,  their  morals 
are  crude,  they  are  polygamists,  their  worship  is  fetichistic 
and  polytheistic,  their  gods  are  fierce  nature  forces.  Hu- 
man sacrifices  are  not  unknown  among  them. 

From  Moses  to  David  (1300  to  1000  B.C.).  —  Under 
the  leadership  of  Moses,  Jehovah  (Yahveh)  becomes  Is- 
rael's tribal  god,  the  tribes  swearing  allegiance  to  him  at 
Sinai.  He  is  cruel  and  vindictive,  but  certain  moral  ele- 
ments come  early  to  be  associated  with  his  character.  He 
is  represented  by  no  image;  the  "Ark"  is  his  home. 
While  it  is  thought  proper  for  other  nations  and  peoples 
to  worship  their  own  tribal  or  national  gods,  the  people  of 
Israel  are  forbidden  to  worship  any  god  but  their  own. 
The  tribes  invade  Canaan,  which  they  regard  as  their 
"Promised   Land,"  —  promised   them  by  Jehovah.      The 


254  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

conquest  of  the  country  proceeds  slowly.  The  wars  car- 
ried on  are  brutal.  There  is  much  massacring  of  con- 
quered enemies,  women  and  children  as  well  as  men,  at 
the  reputed  command  of  Jehovah.  By  degrees  the  no- 
madic gives  place  to  the  settled  agricultural  life.  Gradu- 
ally the  tribes  draw  nearer  together.  Social  life  and  moral 
conditions  somewhat  improve.  But  there  is  still  much 
worship  of  idols  and  of  Canaanitish  gods.  Jehovah  him- 
self is  worshipped  under  the  form  of  a  bull. 

From  David  Onward  (1000-586  B.C.).  —  Under  Saul 
and  David  the  tribes  are  consolidated  and  become  really  a 
nation.  David  and  Solomon  build  in  Jerusalem  a  Temple 
to  Jehovah;  yet  the  worship  of  other  gods  flourishes. 
There  are  even  horrid  rites  (including  the  offering  of 
children)  to  Molech.  The  prophets  arise, —  Elijah  and 
Elisha  (9th  century  B.C.),  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Micah, 
and  others  (8th  century),  —  leading  in  a  fierce  war  against 
idolatry.  It  is  **  Jehovah  against  Baal !  "  The  prophets 
more  and  more  emphasize  the  moral  element  in  religion,  and 
declare  Jehovah  to  be  a  stern  and  holy  god,  demanding 
Justice  and  Truth.  There  is  a  partial  reformation  under 
King  Hezekiah  (about  710  B.C.),  and  a  more  effectual  one 
under  King  Josiah  (621)  ;  and  yet  the  old  evils  tenaciously 
persist. 

The  Captivity  in  Babylon  (586-536). — The  hard  and 
bitter  experiences  of  the  Captivity,  like  purifying  fires, 
finally  destroy  idolatry;  and  from  this  time  on  Jehovah  is 
the  sole  object  of  worship.  The  influence  of  the  priests 
increases.  Priestly  laws  are  elaborated.  The  prophets, 
particularly  the  "Great  Unknown,"  the  so-called  "Second 
Isaiah,"  comfort  the  people  and  keep  alive  their  hope  of 
return  to  their  own  land.  The  character  of  Jehovah  is 
elevated  and  more  fully  endowed  with  ethical  elements. 


A   HISTORICAL  SUMMARY.  255 

He  begins  to  be  thought  of  as  not  confined  to  Israel,  but 
as  the  God  of  the  whole  earth.  He  is  becoming  a  God  of 
love.    Worship  grows  more  pure  and  spiritual. 

From  the  Captivity  to  Jesus  (536-5  B.  C).  —  A  com- 
pany of  zealous  Jews  return  from  Babylon  to  Jerusalem ; 
they  rebuild  the  Temple  and  then  the  walls  of  the  city. 
Under  the  influence  of  Ezra  legalism  becomes  dominant. 
Priestly  regulations  multiply.  The  authority  of  Moses  is 
exalted.  The  canon  of  *'  The  Law  "  is  established ;  thus 
Bible-making  begins.  The  Temple-worship  is  greatly  elab- 
orated ;  rites  and  forms  increase ;  at  the  same  time  many 
noble  religious  hymns  (preserved  in  our  Book  of  Psalms) 
are  composed.  The  Church  absorbs  the  State.  Prophet 
religion  gives  way  to  priest  religion.  The  eyes  of  the 
people  are  more  and  more  turned  to  the  past.  The  reli- 
gion of  Israel  becomes  "Judaism,"  —  founded  on  a  Book. 

Yet  synagogues  multiply,  and  their  influence  is  liberal- 
izing. Noble  protests  against  the  growing  ecclesiasticism 
and  pleas  for  freedom  and  breadth  are  written,  like  the 
Books  of  Ruth  and  Jonah.  **  Other-world  "  ideas  come  in 
from  Persia.  The  broadening  influence  of  Greek  culture 
is  felt.  Under  the  stimulus  of  Greek  thought  there  is  a 
rich  development  of  "■  Wisdom  Literature,"  as  seen  in  the 
Books  of  Proverbs  and  Job,  and  the  apocryphal  Ecclesias- 
ticus  and  Wisdom  of  Solomon.  The  Jewish  Sects  (Phari- 
sees, Sadducees  and  Essenes)  arise  and  become  influential. 
A  second  sacred  canon,  that  of  "  The  Prophets,"  is  formed. 
The  fires  of  patriotism,  love  of  freedom,  and  zeal  for  the 
national  religion  blaze  high  under  the  heroic  Maccabees. 
The  "  Messianic  Hope "  is  kindled  in  many  quarters. 
Apocalyptic  books,  like  Daniel  and  Enoch,  are  written, 
adding  to  the  flame  of  that  hope.  Many  psalms,  some  of 
them  breathing  a  spirit  of  universality  and  of  deep  spirit- 


256  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

uality  are  written.  The  tallest  souls  are  coming  to  think 
of  Jehovah  as  a  **  Father."  While  in  some  quarters  there 
are  intense  fanaticism  and  intolerance,  in  others  there  is 
a  growing  spirit  of  cosmopolitanism  such  as  no  previous 
age  has  known.  The  thought  is  arising  in  many  minds 
that  Israel  has  a  mission  to  the  world ;  that  Israel's  God  is 
also  the  God  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  Israel's  faith  should 
be  given  to  all  nations.  Lofty,  ethical,  and  spiritual  ideas, 
much  like  those  which  soon  will  be  preached  by  Jesus,  are 
being  taught  by  Rabbi  Hillel  and  others,  and  they  find 
a  wide  welcome.  Many  influences  are  preparing  the  way 
for  a  movement  like  that  which  Jesus  will  inaugurate. 

Jesus  and  the  New  Testament.  Culmination  of 
the  Evolution. — It  is  plain  that  the  men  who  received  the 
message  of  Jesus  and  gave  it  to  the  world  were  much 
inferior  to  their  Master  in  their  religious  insight.  Only 
imperfectly  did  they  understand  him  (the  fate  of  all 
greatest  teachers).  His  utterances  as  transmitted  to  us 
are  fragmentary,  more  or  less  distorted,  and  mixed  with 
much  that  cannot  have  come  from  him.  And  yet  much 
is  clear.  In  him  the  prophetic  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament 
finds  a  glorious  rebirth.  He  is  in  the  line  of  Amos, 
Hosea,  and  the  Second  Isaiah,  and  he  surpasses,  overtops 
his  predecessors.  His  religion  is  the  best  religion  of  his 
people  carried  to  a  still  more  complete  development.  He 
is  not  free  from  the  limitations  of  his  time,  as  is  seen  in  his 
belief  in  demon-possession,  the  speedy  approach  of  the 
"  end  of  the  world,"  and  much  else.  But  he  is  a  spiritual 
seer,  a  great  prophet  soul,  a  religious  reformer  with  a 
burning  message,  a  mighty  lover  of  men,  truly  a  "  teacher 
sent  from  God." 

His  all-overmastering  thought  is  love.  His  central 
gospel  is,  God  is  the   universal   Father   and   all   men   are 


A  HISTORICAL  SUMMARY.  2^7 

brothers.  His  aim,  from  which  he  never  swerves,  is  the 
establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  (the  reign  of 
love  and  purity  and  peace)  in  the  hearts  of  men.  His 
mountain-summit  teachings  are  the  Beatitudes,  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  "  love  your  enemies,"  the  Golden  Rule  (indeed  the 
whole  Sermon  on  the  Mount),  "  I  was  hungry  and  ye  gave 
me  meat,"  "  whoso  would  be  great  let  him  be  a  servant," 
the  two  Great  Commandments,  the  parables  of  the  Good 
Samaritan  and  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  his  own  prayer  in 
Gethsemane,  **  Father,  not  my  will  but  thine  be  done." 
In  Jesus  the  splendid  line  of  Israel's  prophets  culmin- 
ates. In  his  teaching  and  life  the  religion  of  the  Bible  finds 
its  finest  efflorescence.  His  gospel  of  God's  Fatherhood 
and  Man's  Brotherhood  is  the  climax  and  consummation  of 
Israel's  ethical  and  spiritual  evolution  of  more  than  twelve 
centuries. 

We  shall  never  understand  the  religion  of  the  Bible 
until  we  learn  to  conceive  of  it  as  an  evolution,  and  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  as  the  many-sided  and  many- 
voiced  literature  in  which  all  phases  and  stages  of  that 
evolution  from  lowest  to  highest  are  portrayed. 

Where,  then,  in  the  Bible  shall  we  go  for  ethical  stand- 
ards, for  true  views  of  God,  for  just  rules  of  life  and  con- 
duct? To  all  parts  alike?  Certainly  not.  To  the  lowest? 
Never.  Where  then?  To  the  best,  and  to  these  alone. 
Always  to  those  parts  which  show  the  evolution  most 
advanced,  highest,  nearest  its  completion.  In  the  Old 
Testament  to  the  greatest  of  the  Prophets,  and  to  the 
loftiest  and  purest  of  the  Psalms.  In  the  New  Testament 
to  the  highest  utterances  of  Paul  and  John  and  James,  but 
above  all,  to  Jesus.  And  even  in  Jesus  there  are  better 
and  best.     We  must  go  to  the  best  even  in  the  Gospels. 

17 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  MODERN 
SCHOLARSHIP.— L 

Is  the  Bible  infallible?  Or,  to  use  a  word  that  is  pre- 
ferred in  some  quarters,  Is  the  Bible  inerrant  ? 

Hardly  any  questions  of  our  day  are  being  asked  by  so 
many  persons  as  these.  Hardly  any  are  being  asked  so 
earnestly.     What  answer  has  scholarship  to  make? 

Happily,  so  far  as  biblical  scholarship  is  independent, 
honest,  and  competent  (and  no  other  is  worth  consider- 
ing), its  answer  to  these  questions  is  at  last  becoming 
clear,  even  if  it  has  not  been  clear  in  the  past. 

Such  scholarship  no  longer  hesitates  to  subscribe  to 
the  language  of  Professor  Briggs  when  he  says :  "  So  far 
as  I  can  see,  there  are  errors  in  the  scriptures  that  no 
one  has  been  able  to  explain  away ;  and  the  theory  that 
they  were  not  in  the  original  text  is  sheer  assumption, 
upon  which  no  mind  can  rest  with  certainty.  If  such 
errors  destroy  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  it  is  already 
destroyed  for  historians.  Men  cannot  shut  their  eyes  to 
truth  and  fact.  But  on  what  authority  do  these  theolo- 
gians drive  men  from  the  Bible  by  this  theory  of  iner- 
rancy ?  The  Bible  itself  nowhere  makes  this  claim. 
.  .  .  It  is  a  ghost  of  modern  evangelicalism  to  frighten 
children."  ^ 

Let  us  see  exactly  the  grounds  upon  which  scholars 

'  Inaugural  Address  (Jan.  20,  1891),  p.  35. 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  259 

make  such  declarations  as  this  of  Dr.  Briggs.  To  some 
extent  these  grounds  have  been  set  forth  already ;  for 
if  a  tithe  of  what  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  pages 
is  true,  there  is  not  even  a  possibility  that  the  Bible  is 
infallible  or  inerrant.  Yet  the  long  array  of  facts  that 
has  already  passed  before  us  is  but  a  small  part  of  the 
evidence  that  quickly  accumulates  as  soon  as  we  are 
willing  really  to  think  and  inquire. 

We  have  taken  up  the  subject  of  the  origin  of  the 
various  books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New.  We 
have  inquired  when  they  were  written,  how  they  were 
written,  who  wrote  them  ?  Have  we  found  our  answers 
such  as  to  give  us  ground  for  believing  in  the  infallibility 
of  their  origin  ?  We  have  inquired  how  the  various 
books  were  gathered  together  into  a  sacred  Canon.  Did 
we  find  no  evidences  of  human  imperfection  here?  We 
have  inquired  about  the  original  text — how  it  was  pro- 
duced, and  how  it  has  been  preserved  and  handed  down. 
Has  the  text  been  guarded  against  the  possibility  of  error  ? 
Then  come  the  translations.  Have  these  been  governed 
by  supernatural  wisdom  ?  Yet  all  this  is  necessary  to 
insure  us  an  infallible  Bible  to-day.  If  a  single  link 
breaks  in  all  this  two-thousand-years '-long  chain  of  infal- 
lible production  and  transmission,  then,  whatever  our 
theories  may  be,  as  a  fact  the  Bible  which  we  hold  in 
our  hand  to-day  is  not  infallible. 

Sixty-six  Infallible  Books? — We  must  not  forget 
that  even  if  we  could  prove  the  infallibility  of  one,  or  a 
score,  of  the  books  of  the  Bible,  that  would  not  establish 
the  infallibility  of  the  rest.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  origin- 
ally the  books  were  not  together.  There  is  no  way  of 
establishing  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  only 
by  establishing  the  infallibility  of  each  and  every  one  of 


2fjO  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

the  books  that  make  it  up.  If  I  have  in  my  library  sixty- 
six  miscellaneous  volumes  of  prose  and  poetry,  history, 
biography,  letters,  etc.,  written  in  three  or  four  different 
countries,  and  by  men  of  all  grades  of  character  and 
culture,  some  of  them  living  ten  centuries  apart,  will  the 
fact  that  I  may  be  able  to  prove  a  certain  thing  about 
one  or  more  of  the  volumes  justify  me  in  claiming  that  I 
have  proved  it  concerning  all  ?  Very  well,  we  have  found 
the  Bible  to  be  such  a  library  of  sixty-six  miscellaneous 
books,  of  various  and,  for  the  most  part,  utterly  uncon- 
nected origin.  Every  book,  therefore,  which  has  a  place 
in  it,  stands  or  falls  by  itself.  The  various  books  are  not 
a  whit  more  related  to  each  other  than  they  would  be  if 
they  were  printed  and  bound  as  sixty-six  different  and 
distinct  volumes,  each  under  its  own  separate  name.  The 
real  question  then  is  not  as  to  one  infallibility,  but  as  to 
sixty-six  infallibilities. 

But  a  large  number  of  the  most  serious  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  believing  in  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  I 
have  not  yet  mentioned  at  all.  I  should  be  inexcusable 
if  I  did  not  point  out  some  of  the  more  prominent  of 
these,  so  that  it  may  be  seen  as  plainly  as  possible  how 
increasingly  hopeless  a  task  candid  men,  who  think  and 
investigate,  are  finding  they  have  before  them,  in  this 
age  of  growing  knowledge,  when  they  undertake  to  keep 
their  belief  that  the  Bible  is  a  book  which  contains  no 
mistakes  and  no  imperfections.  The  following  points  I 
mention  without  stopping  to  elaborate  them  more  than 
in  the  briefest  manner. 

I.  The  Doctrine  of  Infallibility  not  Found  in  the  Bible. 
— The  Bible  itself  does  not  claim  to  be  free  from  error. 
While  in  places  certain  claims  of  superior  inspiration  and 
guidance  of  God  are  doubtless  put  forth,  there    is  no 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  26 1 

place  in  which  the  claim  is  made  that  the  Bible  as  a 
whole,  or  even  any  considerable  part  of  it,  is  infallible. 
Among  the  scripture  passages  that  are  quoted  in  sup- 
port of  the  infallibility  theory,  the  following  is  conceded 
by  every  writer,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  be  the  strongest ;  to 
wit :  "All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and 
is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for 
instruction  in  righteousness."  ^  But  as  soon  as  we  begin 
to  look  at  this  passage  carefully,  two  or  three  things 
appear,  which  rob  it  wholly  of  value  as  proof  that  the 
Bible  is  infallible,  (i)  It  says  nothing  about  infallibility: 
it  speaks  only  of  inspiration.  Nor  are  the  two  necessa- 
rily connected.  For  Peter  and  Paul,  who  are  regarded 
as  inspired  men,  confess  that  they  make  mistakes.  If, 
then,  inspired  men  may  err,  why  not  an  inspired  book? 
(2)  At  the  time  this  Epistle  to  Timothy  was  written,  there 
was  no  New  Testament.  The  collection  of  writings 
which  we  know  by  that  name  was  not  made  until  long 
after.  The  only  sacred  Scripture  known  to  the  Chris- 
tians at  that  time  was  the  Old  Testament.  The  **  all 
scripture"  referred  to,  therefore,  of  course  meant  Old 
Testament  scripture.  So,  then,  even  if  this  passage 
proved  infallibility  at  all,  it  would  be  only  of  the  Old 
Testament.  (3)  But  that  it  does  not  prove  that,  or  any- 
thing looking  in  that  direction,  is  seen  as  soon  as  we  get 
a  correct  translation.  It  has  long  been  known  to  scholars 
that  the  rendering  in  our  common  version  is  wrong.  The 
Revised  Version  gives  it  correctly,  as  follows :  "  Every 
scripture  inspired  of  God  is  also  profitable  for  teaching, 
for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  intsruction,"  etc.  That 
this  teaches  Bible  infallibility,  nobody  can  claim. 

*  2  Tim.  iii.  16. 


262  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Another  passage  sometimes  quoted  to  prove  the  Bible 
infallible  is  this  from  Second  Peter :  "  Holy  men  of  God 
spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost."  It  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that  this  Epistle  (as  has  been  shown  in  a 
preceding  chapter)  is  almost  certainly  not  from  Peter  at 
all,  but  is  a  non-apostolic  writing  of  the  middle  of  the 
second  century.  Its  claim,  therefore,  to  be  in  the  New 
Testament  is  of  the  poorest.  But  even  if  we  admit  it  to 
be  genuine  scripture,  what  then  ?  It  says  nothing  about 
Bible  infallibility.  It  makes  no  claim  concerning  the 
Bible  of  any  kind.  In  affirming  that  "  holy  men  spake  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit,"  it  simply  affirms 
the  great  truth  of  the  living  inspiration  of  God  in  the 
soul  of  man,  something  as  true  of  our  time  as  of  any  time 
in  the  past,  and  having  no  necessary  connection  with  any 
book.^ 

'  •'  The  frequent  use  in  the  Old  Testament  of  such  solemn  phrases  as 
*  Thus  saith  the  Lord  ; '  '  And  God  said  ; '  '  And  God  spake  these  words  and 
said  ; '  and  verses  which  tell  us  that  *  All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of 
God  ;  *  that  '  holy  men  of  old  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,' 
form  one  of  the  chief  foundations  on  which  the  claim  (that  the  Bible  is 
infallible)  is  rested.  Upon  the  use  of  the  phrases  quoted,  some  very  instruct- 
ive facts  are  given  by  Sir  Samuel  Baker  in  his  book  on  the  '  Nile  Tributaries.' 
He  says  (pp.  129-131) :  '  The  conversation  of  the  Arabs  is  in  the  exact  style 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  name  of  God  is  coupled  with  every  trifling 
incident  in  life.  Should  a  famine  afflict  the  country,  it  is  expressed  in  the 
stern  language  of  the  Old  Testament  :  "  The  Lord  hath  sent  a  grievous 
famine  upon  the  land."  Should  their  cattle  fall  sick,  it  is  considered  to  be 
an  affliction  by  divine  command  ;  or  should  the  flocks  prosper  and  multiply, 
the  prosperity  is  attributed  to  divine  interference.  .  .  .  Thus  there  is 
great  light  thrown  upon  many  Old  Testament  passages  by  the  experience  of 
the  present  customs  and  figures  of  speech  of  the  Arabs.  .  .  .  With  the 
Bible  in  one  hand  and  these  unchanged  tribes  before  the  eyes,  there  is  a 
thrilling  illustration  of  the  sacred  records.  .  .  .  Should  the  present  his- 
tory of  the  country  be  written  by  an  Arab  scribe,  the  style  of  description 
would  be  purely  that  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  various  calamities,  or 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  263 

In  the  saying  of  Christ  that  **  Heaven  and  earth  shall 
pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away  "  (Mark  xiii. 
31),  many  suppose  they  see  a  claim  of  Bible  infallibility. 
But  all  the  words  of  Christ  together  constitute  only  an 
infinitesimal  portion  of  the  Bible ;  they  form  simply  a 
part  of  four  out  of  the  sixty-six  books.  It  is  probable, 
too,  that  he  was  not  thinking  of  written  words  at  all,  for 
at  that  time  none  of  his  words  had  been  written ;  only  a 
few  ever  were  written,  and  those  not  until  a  generation 
after  his  death.  He  seems  to  have  been  simply  thinking 
of  his  spoken  words  as  true^  and  therefore  eternal. 

Others  cite  the  somewhat  similar  utterance  of  Christ 
found  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  (Matt.  v.  18)  as  prov- 
ing that  the  Bible  is  infallible :  **  Till  heaven  and  earth 
pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the 
law,  till  all  be  fulfilled."  But  what  was  then  understood 
by  the  law  was  not  identical  with  the  Bible  as  we  have  it 
to-day.  Then  there  was  no  New  Testament,  and  no  part 
of  one.  By  the  law  was  meant  simply  a  part  (the  first 
five  books)  of  the  Old  Testament.  Indeed,  it  is  likely 
that  Jesus  meant  something  even  more  limited  than  that ; 
namely,  the  moral  teaching  of  those  books.  And  this 
he  taught  was  fulfilled  (filled  full^  in  his  Gospel.  Thus 
we  see  there  is  nothing  in  this  passage  about  Bible  infal- 
libility. 

the  good  fortunes  that  have,  in  the  course  of  nature,  befallen  both  the  tribes 
and  individuals  would  be  recounted  either  as  special  visitations  ot  divine 
wrath,  or  blessings  for  good  deeds  performed.  If  in  a  dream  a  particular 
course  of  action  is  suggested,  the  Arab  believes  that  God  has  spoken  and 
directed  him.  The  Arab  scribe  or  historian  would  describe  the  event  as  the 
"  voice  of  the  Lord"  having  spoken  unto  the  person  ;  or  that  God  appeared 
to  him  in  a  dream  and  "  said"  etc.  Thus  much  allowance  would  be  neces- 
sary on  the  part  of  a  European  reader  for  the  figurative  ideas  and  expressions 
of  the  people'"  (Clcdd's  "  Childhood  of  Religion,"  pp.  236-238). 


264  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE, 

There  is  only  one  other  passage  that  need  be  referred 
to.  It  is  that  strange  and  terrible  one  found  at  the  close 
of  the  Apocalypse,  or  Revelation :  "  I  testify  unto  every 
man  that  heareth  the  words  of  the  prophecy  of  this  book, 
If  any  man  shall  add  unto  these  things,  God  shall  add 
unto  him  the  plagues  that  are  written  in  this  book:  and 
if  any  man  shall  take  away  from  the  words  of  the  book  of 
this  prophecy,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  out  of  the 
book  of  life,  and  out  of  the  holy  city,  and  from  the  things 
which  are  written  in  this  book."  Of  this  passage  two 
things  are  to  be  said :  (i)  It  is  found  in  one  of  the  most 
doubtful  of  the  books  of  the  Bible — a  book  which  had 
difficulty  in  gaining  admission  into  the  Canon,  and  which 
has  been  distrusted  by  many  learned  and  devout  scholars 
of  both  ancient  and  modern  times.  (2)  A  very  little 
consideration  shows  that  the  passage  makes  no  reference 
whatever  to  the  subject  of  whether  the  Bible  is  infallible 
or  not.  It  says  nothing  about  the  Bible.  Indeed,  there 
was  no  Bible  at  that  time,  except  the  Old  Testament,  and 
to  that  it  makes  no  allusion.  It  simply  refers  to  the 
*'book  of  this  prophecy  ;''  that  is,  the  book  in  which  the 
passage  is  found — the  Apocalypse.  The  writer  resorts 
to  the  very  questionable  expedient  of  undertaking  to 
protect  his  production  from  mutilation  or  change,  by 
launching  a  threat  or  curse  against  any  one  who  should 
presume  to  tamper  with  it. 

Thus  we  see  how  groundless  is  the  belief  that  the  Bible 
claims  to  be  infallible.  Indeed,  there  is  much  in  it  that 
teaches  the  opposite.  Jesus  says  to  the  people:  "Why 
even  of  yourselves  judge  ye  not  what  is  right  ?  "  Both 
Old  Testament  and  New  are  full  of  appeals  from  external 
authorities  of  all  kinds — to  the  reason,  the  heart,  and  the 
conscience  of  men.     The  Bible  points  out  freely  the  im- 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  265 

perfections  of  its  leading  characters  and  writers.  Nathan 
could  hardly  have  regarded  David  as  infallible  when  he 
confronted  him  with  a  terrible  murder,  saying :  "  Thou 
art  the  man."  Paul  could  not  have  known  of  Peter's  in- 
fallibility when,  long  after  both  had  become  eminent 
preachers  and  teachers  of  the  Gospel,  he  said  of  Peter : 
"  I  withstood  him  to  the  face,  because  he  was  to  be 
blamed."  Jesus  could  not  have  known  of  the  infallibility 
of  the  Old  Testament  when  he  cited  passage  after  pas- 
sage from  it,  to  contradict  it  and  to  command  the  oppo- 
site.* 

The  truth  is,  the  doctrine  of  Bible  infallibility,  or  in- 
errancy, as  taught  in  the  modern  world,  was  unknown 
to  the  ancient  Jews,  unknown  to  Christ,  and  unknown  to 
the  early  Christian  Church.  It  did  not  come  into  exist- 
ence until  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  and 
was  not  held  by  the  earliest  and  greatest  of  the  Reform- 
ers— Luther,  Calvin,  Zwingli,  and  their  associates.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  never  adopted  it. 

But  nothing  is  necessary  to  show  how  utterly  ground- 
less the  doctrine  is,  except  to  examine  the  Bible  itself. 

Contradictions  in  the  Bible. — Both  Testaments  con- 
tain numerous  contradictions.  These  furnish  evidence  so 
incontrovertible  on  the  question  before  us,  that  I  shall 
cite  a  considerable  number,  though  only  a  small  part  of 
all  there  are. 

Attention  is  called  in  another  chapter  to  the  contradic- 
tion between  2  Sam.  xxiv.  i,  and  I  Chron.  xxi.  i.  In 
one  of  these  passages  we  are  told  that  it  was  the  Lord^ 
and  in  the  other  that  it  was  Satan,  who  prompted  David 
to  do  a  certain  thing  ;  namely,  to  number,  or  take  a  cen- 

*  Matt.  V.  21-48. 


266 


ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


sus  of  Israel.     Of  course  both  statements  cannot  be  true 
unless  the  Lord  and  Satan  are  the  same  being. 
I  place  a  few  passages  side  by  side : 


"And  David's  heart  smote  him 
after  that  he  had  numbered  the  peo- 
ple. And  David  said  unto  the  Lord, 
I  have  sinned  greatly  in  that  I  have 
done." — 2  Sam.  xxiv.  lo. 


"  David  did  that  which  was  right 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord,  and  turned 
not  aside  from  any  thing  that  he 
commanded  him  all  the  days  of  his 
life,  save  only  in  the  matter  of  Uriah 
the  Hittite."— I  Kings  xv.  5. 


In  one  of  these  passages  we  find  David  represented 
as  having  sinned  in  the  matter  of  numbering  Israel ;  in 
the  other,  as  never  having  sinned  in  anything  except  in 
robbing  Uriah  the  Hittite  of  his  wife. 

Compare  these  passages : 


"  And  it  came  to  pass  after  these 
things,  that  God  did  tempt  Abra- 
ham."— Gen.  xxii.  i. 

"  O  Lord,  thou  hast  deceived  me, 
and  I  was  deceived." — Jer.  xx.  7. 


"  Let  no  man  say  when  he  is 
tempted,  I  am  tempted  of  God  :  for 
God  cannot  be  tempted  with  evil, 
neither  tempteth  he  any  man." — 
Jas.  i.  13. 


Here  we  are  told,  on  the  one  hand,  that  God  tempts 
certain  men ;  and,  on  the  other,  that  he  tempts  nobody. 
In  the  case  of  Jeremiah  we  are  told  that  he  goes  even 
farther  than  tempting,  he  deceives. 

Compare  these  passages : 


"The  earth  abideth  forever." — 
Eccl.  i.  4. 

*  *  Who  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
earth  that  it  should  not  be  removed 
forever." — Ps.  civ.  5. 

And  these : 

"  Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind 
into  heaven." — 2  Kings  ii.  11. 


"  The  earth  also,  and  the  works 
that  are  therein,  shall  be  burned 
up." — 2  Pet.  iii.  10. 

"  They  shall  perish,  but  thou  re- 
mainest." — Heb.  i.  11. 


"  No  man  hath  ascended  up  to 
heaven  but  he  that  came  down  from 
heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man." — 
John  iii.  13. 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY, 


267 


And  these : 

"  Whosoever  is  born  of  God  doth 
not  commit  sin  ;  he  cannot  sin  be- 
cause he  is  born  of  God." — i  John 
iii.  9. 

And  these : 

' '  Noah  offered  burnt  offerings  on 
the  altar.  And  the  Lord  smell  ed  a 
sweet  savor ;  and  the  Lord  said  in 
his  heart,  I  will  not  again  curse  the 
ground  any  more  for  man's  sake." — 
Gen.  viii.  20,  21. 

"  Ye  shall  offer  the  burnt  offering 
for  a  sweet  savor  unto  the  Lord. " — 
Num.  xxviii.  27. 

"Ye  shall  offer  a  burnt  offering,  a 
sacrifice  made  by  fire,  of  a  sweet 
savor  unto  the  Lord,  thirteen  young 
bullocks,  two  rams,  and  fourteen 
lambs." — Num.  xxix.  13. 


"There  is  no  man  that  sinneth 
not." — I  Kings  viii.  46. 

"  There  is  not  a  just  man  upon 
earth,  that  doeth  good  and  sinneth 
not." — Eccl.  vii.  20. 


"  Thou  desirest  not  sacrifice,  else 
would  I  give  it  ;  thou  delightest  not 
in  burnt  offering." — Ps.  li.  16. 

"I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bul- 
locks, or  of  lambs,  or  of  he-goats." 
— Isa.  i.  II. 

**  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before 
the  Lord  ?  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased 
with  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten 
thousands  of  rivers  of  oil?  What 
doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee  but  to  do 
justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  humbly 
walk  with  thy  God  ?  "— Mic.  vi.  6-8. 


Compare  also  the  following: 


"There  is  no  darkness  nor  shadow 
of  death  where  the  workers  of  in- 
iquity may  hide  themselves." — Job 
xxxiv.  22. 

' '  And  David  took  from  him  a 
thousand  chariots  and  seven  hundred 
horsemen." — 2  Sam.  viii.  4. 

"Michal,  the  daughter  of  Saul, 
had  no  child  unto  the  day  of  her 
death." — 2  Sam.  vi.  23. 

"And  the  men  which  journeyed 
with  him  [Paul]  stood  speechless, 
hearing  a  voice,  but  seeing  no  man." 
— Acts  ix.  7. 


"Adam  and  his  wife  hid  them- 
selves from  the  presence  of  the  Lord, 
among  the  trees  of  the  garden." — 
Gen.  iii.  8. 

"And  David  took  from  him  a 
thousand  chariots  and  seven  thousand 
horsemen." — i  Chron.  xAaii.  4. 

"  The  five  sons  of  Michal,  the 
daughter  of  Saul. " — 2  Sam.  xxi.  8. 

"  They  that  were  with  me  saw 
indeed  the  light  and  were  afraid : 
but  they  heard  not  the  voice  of  him 
that  spake  to  me." — Acts  xxii.  9.^ 


'  Of  the  three  accounts  of  Paul's  conversion,  found  in  Acts  ix.  3-19, 
xxii.  6-16,  and  xxvi.  12-18,  Dr.  Edwin  Hatch  says  :    "  The  differences  are 


268 


ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


"Ihave  seen  God  face  to  face."         "No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any 
— Gen.  xxxii.  30.  time." — i  John  iv.  12. 


And  the  following : 

*'  I  am  the  Lord,  I  change  not." 
— Mai.  iii.  6. 

"  With  whom  is  no  variableness, 
neither  shadow  of  turning."-} as.  i.  17. 

*'  I  will  not  go  back,  neither  will  I 
repent." — Ezek.  xxiv.  14. 

"There  is  no  respect  of  persons 
[partiality]  with  God." — Rom.  ii.  11. 

"  He  that  goeth  down  to  the  grave 
shall  come  up  no  more. " — Job  vii.  9. 


' '  And  God  repented  of  the  evil  that 
he  had  said  he  would  do  unto  them, 
and  he  did  it  not." — Jonah  iii.  10. 

[There  are  no  fewer  than  fourteen 
places  in  the  Bible  where  God  is 
spoken  of  as  repenting.] 

* '  Jacob  have  I  loved,  but  Esau 
have  I  hated." — Rom.  ix.  13.  (See 
vs.  10-18.) 

"The  trumpet  shall  sound  and  the 
dead  shall  be  raised." — i  Cor.  xv.  52. 


Different  Forms  of  the  Ten  Commandments. — Every 
careful  student  of  the  Bible  knows  that  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments are  given  not  only  in  three  different  places 
in  the  Old  Testament,  but  in  two  different  forms — so  dif- 
ferent, that  one  cannot  possibly  be  identified  with  the 
other.  I  place  the  two  forms  side  by  side  for  compari- 
son, only  abridging  each  to  save  space : 


1 .  "  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods 
before  me. 

2.  "Thou   shalt   not    make   unto 
thee  any  graven  image. 

3.  "  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name 
of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain. 

4.  "Remember  the  Sabbath  day, 
to  keep  it  holy.     Six  days  shalt  thou 


1.  "  Thou  shalt  worship  no  other 
god  :  for  the  Lord,  whose  name  is 
Jealous,  is  a  jealous  God. 

2.  "Thou  shalt  make  thee  no 
molten  gods. 

3.  "  The  feast  of  unleavened  bread 
shalt  thou  keep. 

4.  "Six  days  shalt  thou  work, 
but  on  the  seventh   day  thou  shalt 


fatal  to  the  stricter  theories  of  verbal  inspiration,  but  they  do  not  consti- 
tute a  valid  argument  against  the  general  truth  of  the  narrative."  (En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica,  art.  "  Paul.")  The  same  is  true  of  most  of  the  con- 
tradictions found  in  the  narrative  portions  of  the  Bible. 


BIBLE   INFALLIBILITY. 


269 


labor,  and  do  all  thy  work  :  but  the 
seventh  day  is  the  sabbath  of  the  Lord 
thy  God  :  in  it  thou  shalt  not  do  any 
work. 

5.  "  Honor    thy   father    and    thy 
mother. 

6.  **  Thou  shalt  not  kill. 


7.  "Thou  shalt  not  commit  adul- 
tery. 

8.  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal. 


g.   "  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  wit- 
ness against  thy  neighbor. 

10.   "  Thou    shalt    not    covet." — 
(Ex.  XX.  and  Deut.  v.) 


rest :  in  earing  time  and  in  harvest 
thou  shalt  rest. 


5.  "  Thou  shalt  observe  the  feast 
of  weeks,  of  the  firstfruits  of  wheat 
harvest,  and  of  ingathering. 

6.  "Thrice  in  the  year  shall  all 
your  men-children  appear  before  the 
Lord. 

7.  "Thou  shalt  not  offer  the' blood 
of  my  sacrifice  with  leaven. 

8.  "Neither  shall  the  sacrifice  of 
the  feast  of  the  passover  be  left  unto 
the  morning. 

9.  "The  first  of  the  firstfruits  of 
thy  land  thou  shalt  bring  unto  the 
house  of  the  Lord  thy  God. 

10.  "  Thou  shalt  not  boil  a  kid  in 
its  mother's  milk."  —  (Ex.  xxxiv.) 


While  in  the  accounts  found  in  Ex.  xx.  and  Deut.  v. 
we  have  the  Ten  Commandments  given  in  the  first  of 
these  forms  (the  form  in  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
make  use  of  them),  in  Ex.  xxxiv.  we  are  told  explicitly 
that  the  second  form  is  the  one  in  which  they  were 
given  to  Moses  from  God,  and  written  by  Moses  at 
God's  command  on  the  tables  of  stone,  as  the  words  of 
"the  covenant,  the  ten  commandments." 

Contradictions  in  the  Gospels. — There  are  many  con- 
tradictions connected  with  the  accounts  we  have  of  the 
life  of  Jesus.  I  can  refer  to  only  a  few  of  them,  and  in 
the  briefest  way. 

First  of  all  there  is  a  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the 
childhood  of  Jesus.  According  to  Luke  he  was  born  in 
Bethlehem,  after  which  (ii.  22)  his  parents  took  him  to 
Jerusalem  to  perform  some  religious  ceremony   in  the 


270  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

temple,  when  he  was  forty  days  old,  and  then  at  once 
departed  (ii.  39)  into  Galilee  to  their  own  city,  Nazareth ; 
and  from  there  they  went  up  every  year  to  Jerusalem  to 
the  feast  of  the  passover  (ii.  41).  Thus  we  have  the  child- 
hood of  Jesus  accounted  for  up  to  twelve  years  of  age. 
But  now  turning  to  Matthew  (chap,  ii.)  we  find  a  differ- 
ent and  conflicting  account.  Matthew  tells  us  that  imme- 
diately after  the  birth  of  Jesus  and  the  visit  of  the  Magi, 
his  parents  took  him  (not  back  to  Nazareth,  but)  down 
into  Egypt  and  the  return  to  Nazareth  was  not  until 
after  a  residence  of  some  time  in  Egypt,  and  the  death  of 
Archelaus,  Herod's  son  and  successor.  How  are  these 
two  accounts  to  be  harmonized  ? 

Again,  there  are  irreconcilable  difficulties  in  connection 
with  the  genealogies  of  Jesus  given  by  Matthew  and 
Luke.  Both  these  genealogies  trace  the  ancestry  of 
Jesus  through  Joseph.  But  having  done  this,  both  Mat- 
thew and  Luke  tell  us  that  Joseph  was  not  the  father  of 
Jesus  at  all.  Thus  Jesus  is  claimed  to  have  descended 
from  David,  because  a  man  who  is  not  his  father  descended 
from  David.  A  most  extraordinary  claim !  Moreover, 
Matthew  says  the  number  of  generations  from  Abraham 
to  David  is  fourteen,  and  from  David  to  the  Captivity 
fourteen,  and  from  the  Captivity  to  Christ  fourteen. 
But  if  we  look  carefully  at  the  genealogy,  as  he  himself 
gives  it,  the  number  from  Abraham  to  David  is  only 
thirteen^  and  the  number  from  the  Captivity  to  Christ  is 
only  thirteen.  Furthermore,  the  genealogies  of  Joseph, 
the  husband  of  Mary  (called  the  genealogies  oi  Jesus,  but 
not  the  genealogy  of  Jesus  at  all  unless  Joseph  was  Jesus* 
father),  as  given  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  are  radically  dif- 
ferent, agreeing  in  only  fifteen  names  in  the  whole  list, 
and   differing  in  forty   names.     Now,  when  we  bear  in 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  2/1 

mind  that  these  genealogies  both  run  back  in  the  male 
line,  from  son  to  father,  and  then  grandfather,  and  then 
great-grandfather,  and  so  on,  we  see  that  divergence  can 
mean  nothing  else  but  error  in  one  or  the  other  of  the 
authorities,  or  both.  Nor  may  we  suppose  that  one 
genealogy  is  that  of  Mary.  Such  a  supposition  rests  on 
not  a  shadow  of  evidence,  while  it  is  positively  contra- 
dicted by  the  language  of  the  text. 

Passing  on  from  the  birth  and  childhood  to  the  minis- 
try of  Jesus,  there  are  many  more  discrepancies  and  con- 
tradictions. For  example,  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark  Jesus 
is  represented  as  going  to  the  wilderness  immediately  after 
his  baptism,  and  remaining  there  forty  days.  But  when 
we  turn  to  John,  he  tells  us  that  on  the  third  day  after 
the  baptism  Jesus  is  in  Cana  of  Galilee  at  a  wedding,  and 
not  a  word  is  said  about  any  wilderness  or  temptation. 
Of  course  both  these  accounts  cannot  be  true,  unless 
Jesus  can  have  been  in  two  places,  one  in  the  northern 
part  of  Palestine  and  the  other  in  the  southern,  at  the 
same  time. 

The  inscription  on  the  cross  is  given  differently  by  each 
of  the  Gospel  writers,  as  follows : 

"  This  is  Jesus,  the  King  of  the  Jews  "  (Matt,  xxvii.  37). 

"The  King  of  the  Jews  "  (Mark  xv.  26). 

"  This  is  the  King  of  the  Jews  "  (Luke  xxiii.  38). 

"  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King  of  the  Jews "  (John 
xix.  19). 

Of  course  only  one  of  the  four  can  be  correct.  Or,  if 
it  be  claimed  that,  as  the  inscription  was  written  in  He- 
brew, Greek,  and  Latin,  the  form  may  possibly  have  varied 
in  these  different  languages,  and  one  Gospel  writer  may 
have  reported  one  form  and  another  another,  even  then 
the  difficulty  is  only  slightly  lessened  ;  for  this  would  give 


272 


ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


US  only  three  varieties  of  form,  whereas  we  have  coming 
down  to  us  four.  So  that  still  we  are  obliged  to  confess 
that  at  least  one  of  the  Gospel  narrators  has  made  a  mis- 
take. 

One  case  more.  Paul  tells  us  (i  Cor.  xv.  5)  that  Christ 
was  seen  of  the  twelve  apostles  after  his  resurrection. 
But  there  were  not  twelve  apostles  to  see  him ;  there 
were  only  eleven :  since  we  are  told  that  Judas  had 
hanged  himself,  and  the  twelfth  apostle,  Matthias,  was 
not  elected  until  after  Christ's  ascension. 

There  are  several  very  plain  contradictions  in  the  ac- 
counts given  of  the  resurrection,  and  of  the  events  occur- 
ring between  the  resurrection  and  ascension ;  but  I  pass 
by  these,  as  well  as  many  others  in  various  parts  of  both 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New. 

Of  course  I  am  aware  of  the  reply  which  is  but  too 
often  made  to  citations  like  these ;  namely,  the  reply  of 
anger  and  denunciation,  that  any  one  should  presume  to 
let  these  contradictions  be  known,  coupled  with  the  dec- 
laration that  they  are  only  "  the  invention  of  infidels," 
which  "  have  been  answered  a  thousand  times."  To  all 
this  I  need  only  say  they  are  not  the  invention  of  any- 
body;  they  are  simply  plain,  straightforward  facts,  which 
refuse  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  wish  of  either 
**  infidel "  or  Christian.  As  to  their  having  been  ^*  an- 
swered a  thousand  times,"  it  is  enough  to  say  they  have 
been  replied  to  a  thousand  times ;  they  have  never  been 
anszvered  at  all.  The  dogmatist  may  deny  them  ;  the  in- 
vestigator who  loves  truth  confesses  them.  Confession  is 
the  only  answer  that  can  be  made  to  them.  Few  of  them 
are  of  a  character  to  invalidate  the  general  historic  fidelity 
and  value  of  the  Bible,  but  they  overturn  utterly  the 
doctrine  of  its  inerrancy. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

BIBLE   INFALLIBILITY    IN   THE  LIGHT   OF  MODERN 
SCHOLARSHIP.  — IL 

I  PASS  on  now  to  notice  other  things  in  the  Bible 
which  it  is  impossible  to  reconcile  with  the  theory  of 
infallibility.  Concerning  these  I  shall  be  as  brief  as  pos- 
sible, citing  only  illustrations  enough  to  make  my  mean- 
ing clear. 

(i.)  Things  Absurd. — The  Bible  contains  many  things 
intrinsically  absurd.  For  example,  the  statement  that 
the  first  woman  was  made  of  a  rib  taken  out  of  the  first 
man's  side ;  the  accounts  of  a  serpent,  and  of  an  ass, 
talking;  the  stories  of  Jonah  living  three  days  within  a 
fish  (Matt.  xii.  40,  common  version,  says  a  whale)^  and  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  eating  grass  like  an  ox  for  seven  years.' 
When  we  find  such  stories  as  these  in  any  of  the  sacred 
books  of  the  world  except  our  own,  we  do    not  for  a 

'  In  this  connection  it  is  in  place  to  notice  also  discrepancies  like  the 
following:  "Sarah,  at  tlie  time  of  her  visit  to  Gerar,  where  her  beauty 
exposed  her,  as  in  Egypt,  to  such  grave  peril,  is  found  to  be  over  ninety 
years  old  (Gen.  xx.;  xvii.  17);  Ishmael,  on  being  led  away  by  his  mother's 
hand,  and  cast  away  by  her  under  a  bush  to  die  (Gen.  xxi.  14,  15),  proves 
to  be  between  fourteen  and  twenty  (Gen.  xvi.  16  ;  xvii.  25  ;  xxi.  5,  8) ; 
Jacob,  who  went  to  Padan-aram  at  about  forty  (Gen.  xxvi.  34  ;  xxvii.  46  ; 
xxviii.  i),  and  lived  there  twenty  years  (Gen.  xxxi.  38,  41),  during  which 
time  Joseph  was  born  (Gen.  xxx.  24),  is  yet  said  to  have  been  over  ninety 
at  Joseph's  birth  (Gen.  xli.  46  ;  xlvii.  9)  ;  and  Benjamin,  the  little  lad  whom 
his  father  cannot  spare  out  of  his  presence  (Gen.  xliii.  8  ;  xliv.  2C,  22,  30), 
proves  to  be  at  that  very  time  the  father  of  ten  children  (Gen.  xlvi.  2l)  * 
(E.  H.  Hall,  in  Unitarian  Review^  November,  1880,  p.  435). 


2/4  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

moment  think  of  believing  them.  We  say  they  are  so 
absurd  that  of  course  we  cannot  believe  them.  But  do 
they  become  any  less  absurd  by  being  found  in  our  own 
sacred  book  ? ' 

(2.)  Historical  Mistakes. — The  Bible  contains  accounts 
and  statements  not  historically  correct.  For  example : 
We  read  in  Luke  that  Augustus  Caesar,  the  Roman 
emperor,  issued  a  decree  that  "  all  the  world  should  be 
taxed  *' — that  is,  enrolled  or  registered  for  the  purposes 
of  a  census;  and  that  it  was  in  connection  with  the  carry- 
ing into  effect  of  this  decree,  when  Cyrenius  was  governor 
of  Syria,  that  Joseph  and  Mary  went,  as  the  decree  re- 
quired them  to  do,  to  Bethlehem,  Joseph's  native  city, 
to  be  taxed  (registered)  ;  and  while  they  were  there  Jesus 
was  born.     (See  Luke,  second  chapter.) 

Now,  in  connection  with  this  account  there  are  no  less 
than  three  or  four  distinct  mistakes.  In  the  first  place, 
history  is  silent  as  to  a  census  of  the  whole  (Roman) 
world  ever  having  been  made  at  all.  In  the  second 
place,  it  is  true  that  Cyrenius  (Quirinius)  did  make  an 
enrollment  in  Palestine,  but  it  was  confined  to  Judea  and 
Samaria,  and  did  not  extend  to  Galilee,  and  hence 
Joseph's  household  (in  Nazareth)  could  not  have  been 
affected  by  it.  In  the  third  place,  it  did  not  take  place 
until  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Herod,  instead  of  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Herod,  as  the  account  of  Luke  states. 
Finally,  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  the  governor 
of  Syria  was  not  Cyrenius  (Quirinius)  butQuintus  Sentius 
Saturninus. 

'  I  mean,  these  stories  are  absurd  when  we  look  at  them  as  accounts  of 
actual  events.  When  looked  at  as  we  look  at  similar  stories  in  other  sacred 
books — viz.,  as  legends  and  myths — they  are  all  interesting,  and  some  of 
them  are  even  beautiful  and  instructive. 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  2/5 

Take  another  example.  In  Matt,  xxiii.  35,  it  is  stated 
that  the  Jews  "  slew  Zacharias,  son  of  Barachias^  between 
the  temple  and  the  altar."  This  is  an  error.  It  was 
Zechariah,  son  of  Jehoiada,  quite  a  different  man,  who 
was  thus  murdered.  (See  2  Chron.  xxiv.  20-22.)  Zach- 
arias, son  of  Barachias,  lived  some  230  years  later. 
There  are  a  considerable  number  of  as  plain  cases  of 
historical  error  as  these. 

I  do  not  point  out  these  errors  because  of  their  great 
importance  in  themselves,  or  because  they  greatly  dimin- 
ish the  general  reliability  of  the  Bible  history,  but  only 
because  of  their  bearing  upon  the  subject  of  infallibility. 
It  is  not  enough  for  an  inerrant  book  to  be  generally 
reliable:  it  must  be  accurate  in  everything.  If  it  errs 
in  anything  its  infallibility  is  gone. 

(3.)  Scientific  Errors. — In  the  Book  of  Levfticus  we 
find  the  Israelites  forbidden  to  eat  the  flesh  of  the  hare, 
"  because  he  cheweth  the  cud,  but  divideth  not  the  hoof." 
Here  the  writer  is  mistaken  as  to  a  scientific  fact :  the 
hare  does  not  chew  the  cud.  Numerous  statements  may 
be  found  which  are  opposed  to  science,  particularly  in 
the  Old  Testament.  The  accounts  given  in  Genesis  of 
the  creation  and  of  the  deluge  are  illustrations.  The 
story  of  the  standing  still  of  the  sun  at  the  command  of 
Joshua  is  another.  Attempts  are  m.ade  to  harmonize 
these  with  science ;  but  the  distorting  of  language  that 
has  to  be  resorted  to  in  order  to  accomplish  even  a 
semblance  of  reconciliation  is  such  as  would  be  tolerated 
nowhere  outside  of  theological  discussion ;  indeed,  it  is 
such  as  destroys  the  signification  of  human  speech,  mak- 
ing it  mean  anything  or  nothing.  ^ 

*  See  pp.  14,  15.  Compare  the  disingenuous  subtleties,  distortions  of 
language,  and  special  pleadings  of   the   majority  of    "harmonizers"   of 


2/6  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

(4.)  Exag^gerations. — The  Bible  contains  evident  ex- 
aggerations. For  example,  the  statements  that  Methu- 
selah lived  nine  hundred  and  sixty-nine  years,  and  Enos 
nine  hundred  and  five  years;  and  that  Lamech  was  a 
hundred  and  eighty-two  years  old  when  his  first  son  was 
born.  Also,  the  account  given  in  2  Chron.  xiii.  of  the 
number  of  soldiers  in  the  Jewish  armies — to  wit,  under 
Abijah  400,000,  and  under  Jeroboam  800,000 //r^^*/ men ; 
of  the  latter,  500,000  fell  in  a  single  battle.  That  this 
must  be  an  enormous  exaggeration — utterly  beyond  pos- 
sible truth — will  appear  when  we  remember  that  the 
whole  country  of  Palestine  from  which  these  1,200,000 
*'  chosen,  mighty  men  of  valor  "  were  raised  at  one  time, 
was  not  as  large  as  the  little  country  of  Wales.  Napo- 
leon's largest  army — that  with  which  he  invaded  Russia 
— consisted  of  only  500,000  men,  the  exact  number  here 
said  to  have  fallen  on  one  side  in  a  single  fight. 

Again,  we  have  an  account  given  (see  I  Sam.  vi.  19)  of 
50,070  men  of  the  village  of  Beth-Shemesh  being  on  a 
certain  occasion  slaughtered  by  the  Lord  because  they 


science  and  Scripture,  with  the  manly  frankness  and  fidelity  to  truth  of 
such  a  man  as  Dean  Stanley,  who  does  not  hesitate  to  say  :  "  It  is  now 
clear  to  all  students  of  the  Bible  that  the  first  and  second  chapters  of 
Genesis  contain  two  narratives  of  the  creation,  side  by  side,  differing  from 
each  other  in  almost  every  particular  of  time,  place,  and  order  "  (Memorial 
sermon  at  the  funeral  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell).  See  Bishop  Colenso's  Works  ; 
Curtis's  "Human  Element  in  Inspiration,"  chap.  iv. ;  "The  Irreconcilable 
Records  ;  or,  Genesis  and  Geology,"  by  Wm.  Denton  ;  "  The  Deluge  in 
the  Light  of  Modern  Science,"  by  the  same  author  ;  "  The  Conflict  Be- 
tween Religion  and  Science,"  by  J.  W.  Draper  ;  "  The  Warfare  of 
Science,"  by  A.  D.  White;  "New  Chapters  in  the  Warfare  of  Science," 
same  author;  "The  Method  of  Creation,"  by  H.  W.  Crosskey  ;  "Order 
of  Creation"  (essays  by  Gladstone,  Huxley,  MUller,  Reville,  and 
Linton). 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  2// 

looked  into  the  ark.  Not  to  say  anything  about  the 
enormity  of  punishing  in  so  terrible  a  manner  so  trivial 
an  offence,  notice  the  number  of  the  slain.  In  no  com- 
munity is  it  ever  estimated  that  more  than  one  in  five  of 
the  population  can  be  men.  So  then  we  see  that  Beth- 
Shemesh  (which  we  know  to  have  been  only  an  insignifi- 
cant town)  must  have  contained,  to  make  the  account 
true,  not  less  than  250,000  population.  Does  this  look 
like  infallibility  ? 

A  little  reflection  shows  us  that  the  numbers  men- 
tioned in  connection  with  the  Exodus  must  be  enormous 
exaggerations.  We  are  told  that  among  those  who  left 
Egypt  were  600,000  men.  Adding  anything  like  the 
usual  proportion  for  women  and  children  would  give 
us  a  company  of  from  2,000,000  to  3,000,000  persons. 
Imagine  such  a  multitude — equal  to  the  population  of  a 
great  state — crossing  the  Red  Sea,  marching,  encamp- 
ing, dwelling  in  tents,  wandering  in  the  desert,  and  keep- 
ing together  as  one  company  for  forty  years.  Dropping 
out  of  the  account  the  whole  enormous  matter  of  sub- 
sistence, think  what  the  mere  organization  and  moving 
of  such  a  host  means.  We  read  of  their  getting  ready 
for  their  journey  in  a  single  night,  and  crossing  the  sea 
in  a  single  night.  But  neither  event  is  within  the  range 
of  possibility.  "  In  1812,  when  Napoleon  crossed  the 
river  Niemen,  it  took  his  army  of  about  230,000  men 
three  days  and  nights  to  cross  the  river,  by  three  bridges, 
in  close  file."  But  that  army  of  Napoleon's  was  less 
than  one-half  as  numerous  as  the  fighting  men  of  the 
Israelites,  and  perhaps  one-tenth  as  numerous  as  the 
whole  multitude,  to  say  nothing  about  their  flocks  which 
they  had  with  them.  Thus  we  see  that  in  this  Exodus 
story  we  are  dealing  with  figures  that  are  simply  incred- 


2^%  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

ible.^  But  such  exaggerations  are  numerous  in  all  the 
older  historical  parts  of  the  Bible. 

(5.)  Childish  Representations  of  God.  —  The  Bible 
contains  representations  of  God  which,  in  the  light  of 
such  teachings  as  those  of  Jesus,  we  cannot  do  other- 
wise than  regard  as  childish.  For  example,  in  Ex.  xxx. 
34-38  we  have  an  account  of  God  giving  Moses  very 
minute  directions  for  making  perfumery,  of  a  kind  that 
would  be  ^'  holy  for  the  Lord,"  to  be  used  in  the  taber- 
nacle when  God  came  to  meet  with  Moses ;  and  if  any 
other  person  made  the  same  he  should  be  put  to  death. 
So,  then,  we  have  the  Creator  of  the  universe  engaged  in 
the  very  dignified  business  of  giving  instructions  as  to 
what  kind  of  perfumery  is  agreeable  to  him ;  moreover, 
making  sure  that  he  shall  have  it  alone,  and  no  one  else 
shall  have  it  with  him,  by  attaching  the  death  penalty  to 
all  rival  manufacture  of  the  perfume. 

(6.)  Morally  Degrading  Representations  of  God. — 
Some  things  which  naturally  fall  under  this  head  will  be 
found  in  the  chapter  on  the  "  Moral  and  Religious  Prog- 
ress Traceable  in  the  Bible,"  to  which  readers  are  re- 
ferred.    But  a  few  facts  must  be  cited  here. 

No  candid  reader  of  the  Bible  can  deny  that  it  contains 
representations  of  God  according  to  which  he  is  not  a 
morally  perfect  being.  For  example,  we  are  told  that 
God  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart  that  he  should  not  let  the 
children  of  Israel  go  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  (Ex.  vii.  13, 
and  xi.  10),  and  then  punished  him  in  the  most  terrible 
manner  for  not  letting  them  go.  Would  this  have  been 
right  on  the  part  of  God  ?  Certainly  not ;  unless  mor- 
ality is  an  altogether  lower  and  poorer  thing  with  God 

*  See  **  Bible  for  Learners,"  vol.  i.  pp.  284,  285. 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  2^^ 

than  it  is  with  us.  Again,  in  the  second  commandment, 
the  reason  urged  by  God  against  idolatry  is  that  he  is  a 
** jealous  God."  ^  Thus  a  trait  of  character  is  ascribed 
to  him  which  is  degrading  even  to  a  human  being. 

Again,  we  read  that  God  ordered  Moses  to  say  unto 
the  king  of  Egypt,  "  Let  us  go,  we  beseech  thee,  three 
days'  journey  into  the  wilderness,  that  we  may  sacrifice 
unto  the  Lord  our  God,"  when  the  object  of  their  going 
was  not  that  at  all,  but  to  escape  altogether  out  of  the 
land,  not  to  come  back.  Thus  we  are  told  that  God  com- 
manded Moses  to  lie.  In  harmony  with  this,  we  are  told 
that  God  ordered  the  Jewish  people,  when  they  were  ready 
to  start  on  their  journey,  to  borrow  every  valuable  thing 
they  could  of  their  Egyptian  neighbors,  and  carry  it  off. 
Thus  they  are  commanded  to  rob  as  well  as  lie. 

Again,  while  the  Israelites  are  in  the  wilderness  a  revolt 
breaks  out,  headed  by  three  men,  Korah,  Dathan,  and 
Abiram.  God  commands  Moses  and  Aaron  at  once  to 
separate  themselves  from  the  rest  of  the  people,  that  he 
may  consume  the  others  with  fire.  But  Moses  and  Aaron 
beg  God  not  to  be  angry  with  the  whole  congregation  for 
one  man's  sin.  In  spite  of  this  plea,  however,  fourteen 
thousand  seven  hundred  persons  died  of  the  plague,  be- 
sides the  two  hundred  and  fifty  insurrectionists  who  were 
swallowed  up  by  an  earthquake.  And  the  plague  would 
have  gone  on  until  all  were  dead,  innocent  and  guilty 
alike,  had  not  Aaron  rushed  in  with  a  censer  full  of  in- 
cense, which  made  an  atonement  for  the  people,  and  the 
plague  was  stayed  (Num.  xvi.  20-50).  Thus  Aaron  and 
Moses  are  represented  as  not  only  more  merciful,  but 
more  just,  than  God. 
• — • " — ' — ' — — ■ —         ■ — — —       —      < 

*  Ex.  XX,  5  ;  xxxiv.  14 ;  Deut.  v.  g. 


280  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Again,  we  find  it  recorded  that  God  commanded  Joshua 
to  massacre  the  people  of  a  certain  list  of  cities — all  the 
men  and  women  and  innocent  children ;  the  only  reason 
being  so  that  he  (Joshua)  and  his  followers  might  possess 
their  cities  and  their  rich  lands  (Josh.  x.  28-41).  Now» 
if  the  Koran  contained  records  of  such  commands,  said  to 
have  been  given  by  the  God  of  the  Mohammedans  to  a 
Mohammedan  general,  Christian  men  would  never  make 
an  end  of  pointing  to  them  as  illustrations  of  the  low  and 
degraded  ideas  about  God  taught  by  Mohammedanism. 
But  if  such  ideas  of  God  would  be  low  and  imperfect  aa 
taught  in  the  Koran,  are  they  less  low  and  imperfect  when 
taught  in  our  Old  Testament  ? 

Again,  to  mention  only  one  more  case,  we  read  in  the 
career  of  Jehu  of  as  horrible  crimes  as  it  is  possible  for 
man  to  commit,  all  done  under  the  command  of  God 
and  with  his  approval.  (See  2  Kings,  chaps,  ix.  and  x.) 
First  Jehu  shoots  King  Joram,  and  then  orders  the  as- 
sassination of  King  Ahaziah ;  then  by  craft  he  obtains 
the  heads  of  seventy  of  Ahab's  children,  which  are  packed 
in  baskets  and  sent  to  him  at  Jezreel ;  pretending  to  have 
had  nothing  to  do  with  this  massacre,  he  follows  it  up  by 
slaying  all  the  rest  of  Ahab's  relations  and  friends,  and 
great  men  and  priests,  until  *'  he  left  him  none  remaining." 
It  seems,  however,  that  forty-two  brethren  of  Ahaziah 
and  a  temple  full  of  priests  still  live ;  these  he  murders 
without  a  word  of  warning.  "  It  is  easy  enough  to  see 
that  Jehu  only  acted  like  an  unscrupulous  usurper,  who 
finds  the  safety  of  his  throne  dependent  upon  the  exter- 
mination of  the  late  dynasty,  while  his  slaughter  of  the 
worshipers  of  Baal  was  done  partly  as  a  sop  to  the 
priests  of  Jehovah,  who  had  been  instrumental  in  urging 
his  pretensions,  and  partly  to  crush  all  lingering  sympathy 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  28  I 

with  the  nouse  of  Ahab  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  He 
was  a  consummate  dissembler,  hypocrite,  and  murderer; 
and  yet  the  Bible  tells  us  that  he  did  according  to  '  all 
that  was  in  God's  heart,*  all  that  was  '  right  in  God's 
eyes,'  and  received  for  so  doing  God's  approval  and 
reward." 

What  shall  we  say  to  all  this  ?  Shall  we  to-day,  in  the 
light  of  civilization  and  of  Christianity,  accept  such  low 
and  unworthy  views  of  God  ?  Can  we  for  one  moment 
maintain  the  moral  inerrancy  of  the  book  that  contains 
them? 

(7.)  Inculcation  of  what  is  Wrong. — There  are  many 
places  where  the  Old  Testament  both  directly  and  indi- 
rectly not  only  sanctions  but  inculcates  what  is  wrong. 
For  example,  in  Ex.  xxii.  18  we  read  the  command, 
"Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live."  This  command 
to  put  witches  to  death,  it  is  probably  safe  to  say,  has 
resulted  in  the  hanging,  burning,  drowning,  and  killing, 
in  one  way  and  another,  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  if  not 
millions,  of  innocent  persons ;  ;ust  as  a  somewhat  similar 
text  in  the  Vedas  (previously  mentioned)  has  caused  mul- 
titudes of  Hindu  widows  to  perform  the  dreadful  rite  of 
Suttee.  So  tremendous  is  the  power  for  evil  of  a  false 
precept  or  bad  command  laid  upon  men  in  the  name  of 
an  infallible  book ! 

In  Deuteronomy  (xxi.  18-21)  we  have  the  command  to 
stone  to  death  unruly  and  disobedient  children ;  and  that, 
too,  on  the  simple  accusation  of  their  parents,  without 
trial.  Think  of  the  enactment  of  such  a  law  to-day,  by 
one  of  our  legislatures,  and  its  attempted  enforcement 
by  the  civil  authorities  !  How  long  before  the  public  con- 
science would  condemn  it  as  not  only  unjust  and  cruel, 
but  horrible?     In  Deut.  xiv.  21  we  read:  "Ye  shall  not 


282  ORIGIN  AND    GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

eat  of  anything  that  dieth  of  itself;  thou  shalt  give  it 
unto  the  stranger  that  is  in  the  gates,  that  he  may  eat  it ; 
or  thou  mayest  sell  it  unto  an  alien."  How  does  such  a 
way  of  disposing  of  bad  meat  harmonize  with  the  Golden 
Rule  ?  In  Psalm  cix.  we  have  a  prayer,  in  which  the  psalm- 
ist implores  that  the  most  terrible  calamities  may  be  vis- 
ited upon  his  enemy,  and  not  only  upon  him  but  upon  his 
children.  He  prays  that  his  enemy's  "  days  may  be  few  "  ; 
that  his  "  children  may  be  fatherless,  and  his  wife  a  widow  "; 
that  his  children  "  may  be  continually  vagabonds  and 
beg,"  and  that  there  may  be  "  none  to  show  them  mercy." 
In  another  psalm  (cxxxvii.)  the  writer  exclaims  regarding 
his  enemy,  "  Happy  shall  he  be  who  taketh  and  dasheth 
thy  little  ones  against  the  stones  !  "  Were  the  psalmists 
inspired  who  wrote  these  words?  If  so,  then  it  becomes 
a  serious  question — Was  it  by  God,  or  by  the  Devil  ? 

In  Leviticus  (xxv.  44-46)  we  have  slavery  inculcated, 
and  that  too  not  as  a  temporary  institution,  but  as  some- 
thing which  was  to  be  perpetual.  ''  Of  the  heathen  that 
are  round  about  you,  shall  ye  buy  bondmen  and  bond- 
women, .  .  .  and  they  shall  be  your  bondmen  for- 
ever."    But  enough ! 

Now  what  are  we  to  say  of  such  flagrant  wrongs,  sanc- 
tioned and  taught  in  the  holy  name  of  religion  ?  There  is 
only  one  answer :  they  must  be  condemned,  no  matter 
where  found.  Of  course,  if  such  were  the  dominant 
teachings  of  the  Bible,  the  book  would  be  not  only  reli- 
giously worthless  :  it  would  be  a  curse  to  the  world.  But, 
fortunately,  every  intelligent  reader  of  its  pages  knows 
that  such  are  not  its  dominant  teachings.  They  are  a 
part  of  its  teachings,  however.  This  fact  no  man  can 
evade.  How,  then,  can  we  rob  them  of  their  evil  effect  ? 
Certainly  not  by  denying  them  ;  still  less  by  defending 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  283 

them,  and  trying  to  make  out  that  they  are  right.  That 
is  to  perpetuate  and  cherish  their  moral  poison.  The 
only  way  to  render  them  harmless  is  to  confess  them,  to 
confess  them  frankly,  but,  at  the  same  time,  to  point  out 
— what  is  true — that  they  mark  but  the  beginning  of  the 
Bible's  religion,  not  its  end  ;  they  are  the  product  of  its 
child  stage,  not  of  its  maturity;  they  are  its  sour  and 
bitter — yes,  and  poisonous — green  fruit,  not  its  rich  and 
healthful  ripe  fruit.  The  latter  comes  in  due  time.  Up 
from  that  earlier  low  level  the  religion  of  the  Bible  rises 
— rises  to  the  lofty  elevation  of  the  greater  prophets  and 
of  Jesiis.  These  are  the  teachers  who  give  the  Bible  its 
domifiant  note,  who  represent  its  true  religion,  who  have 
given  it  its  place  at  the  head  of  the  world's  ethical  and 
religious  literature. 

Summing  up. — I  have  now  caused  to  pass  in  very  brief 
review  before  the  reader,  some  of  the  most  obvious  diffi- 
culties that  rise  in  the  path  of  thoughtful  men,  who,  in 
the  light  of  the  scholarship  and  general  intelligence  of 
the  time,  try  to  believe  that  the  Bible  is  a  book  of  perfect 
and  infallible  truth. 

It  is  very  common  for  preachers  and  religious  teachers 
to  charge  upon  men  who  disbelieve  the  infallibility  of 
the  Bible,  that  their  disbelief  is  something  which  they 
choose,  and  choose  from  bad  motives — in  other  words,  that 
it  is  something  willful  and  wicked.  I  trust  I  have  shown 
that  this  is  not  necessarily  true.  Men  are  obliged  to 
believe  that  two  and  two  make  four ;  they  cannot  believe 
differently,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  wish  it.  So, 
when  they  set  about  the  study  of  the  Bible,  with  their 
eyes  open  and  with  honest  hearts,  and  find  that  the 
book  contains  limitations  corresponding  to  the  limita- 
tions of  the  people  and  the  times  from  which  it  comes, 


284  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

the  mere  fact  that  they  may  wish  still  to  regard  it  as 
perfect  and  infallible  does  not  by  any  means  enable  them 
to  do  so.  Such  numerous  and  manifest  imperfections  as 
have  passed  before  us  in  the  preceding  pages  rise  up 
before  their  vision,  and,  in  spite  of  all  their  efforts  to  see 
them  as  perfections,  persist  in  appearing  as  imperfec- 
tions. This  being  the  case,  the  continued  insistence  of 
the  church  that  they  must  see  them  to  be  perfections 
would  seem  a  great  and  strange  folly. 

Driving  Men  into  Infidelity. — Nothing  can  be  more 
clear  than  that  the  result  must  be  sooner  or  later  to 
drive  this  class  of  men  into  hostility  to  the  church  and 
the  Bible.  Indeed,  the  fact,  so  much  lamented  by  the 
clergy  and  the  religious  press,  that  many  of  the  most 
intelligent  minds  of  the  country  are  already  turning  their 
backs  upon  Christianity,  clearly  finds  an  explanation  to 
no  small  extent  in  the  blind  folly  of  Christianity  in  con- 
tinuing to  demand  that  men  must  subscribe  to  the  belief 
in  an  infallible  book,  or  else  stay  outside  the  Christian 
fold.     Why  does  this  folly  continue  ? 

Something  Wiser  and  Better. — How  is  it  that  intelli- 
gent Christian  men  fail  to  see  that  there  is  no  necessary 
connection  whatever  between  belief  in  the  correctness 
of  all  the  statements  of  every  kind  contained  in  the  Bible, 
and  belief  in  the  great  moral  and  spiritual  teachings  of 
Isaiah  and  Paul  and  Jesus?  Surely,  then,  the  part  of 
wisdom  would  seem  to  be,  f  )r  the  churches  and  those 
who  care  for  Christianity,  to  take  an  entirely  new  depar- 
ture with  regard  to  this  matter  of  Bible  infallibility. 
Let  them  not  persist  in  the  useless,  foolish,  and  in- 
evitably losing  effort  of  trying  longer  to  bolster  it  up. 
There  is  something  better  for  them.  Freely  and  without 
hesitancy  admitting  all  the  errors  and  imperfections  that 


BIBLE   INFALLIBILITY.  28$ 

fair  and  honest  criticism  finds  in  the  Bible,  let  them 
confidently  rest  their  claim  for  it  upon  the  transcendent 
merits  that  the  same  criticism  freely  confesses  it  to  pos- 
sess. Let  them  say,  *'  We  want  no  one  to  believe  what 
there  is  not  ground  for  believing.  We  are  interested,  as 
much  as  any  can  be,  to  find  out  errors  and  imperfections, 
that  men  may  be  warned  against  them.  It  is  truth  that 
we  care  for  ;  especially  do  we  care  for  moral  and  spiritual 
truth,  the  truth  of  the  conscience  and  the  hearty  which  is 
self-witnessing."  The  moment  the  Christian  churches 
and  Christian  people  generally  take  this  position  (and 
not  a  few  of  the  wisest  among  them  are  taking  it  already), 
this  crushing  burden  of  carrying  the  imperfections  of 
the  Bible — this  hopeless  Sisyphus-task  of  apologizing  for 
these  imperfections,  and  trying,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  to 
convince  the  intelligence  of  the  age  that  they  are  perfec- 
tions— is  gone,  and  the  mental  energies  of  Christendom 
are  left  free  to  be  expended  in  better  and  more  worthy 
directions. 

The  Bible  Improved  as  a  Book  of  Worship  and  of 
Practical  Religion,  by  giving  up  the  Idea  of  its  Infalli- 
bility.— Nor  could  the  surrender  of  the  dogma  of  the 
infallibility  of  the  Bible  hurt  the  volume,  as  some  fear, 
as  a  book  of  devotional  and  practical  religion.  Rather, 
in  important  respects,  it  would  help  it  as  such.  For,  as 
already  intimated,  the  loss  of  the  idea  of  infallibility 
would  affect  not  in  the  least  its  higher  and  more  spiritual 
teachings — those  portions  that  are  "  profitable  for  doc- 
trine, for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  in  right- 
eousness." It  would  be  simply  the  letting  in  of  a  healthy 
wind  to  blow  away  as  chaff  a  multitude  of  things  which, 
so  far  from  having  in  them  any  food  for  pious  souls,  or  spir- 
itual edification  for  anybody,  are,  on  the  contrary,  found 


286  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

universally  to  be  a  hindrance  to  piety,  and  a  detraction 
from  edification. 

The  Doctrine  of  Infallibility  an  Enemy  to  Virtue, 
especially  among  the  Young. — It  is  the  growing  feeling 
of  many  of  our  wisest  and  soberest  minds,  that  virtue 
has  few  greater  obstacles  to  contend  with  in  our  age  than 
the  wide-spread  insistence  on  the  part  of  the  church  that 
Old  Testament  morality  is  perfect  morality.  We  have 
seen  that  much  of  it  is  not  perfect.  No  one  coming 
to  the  study  of  it  with  a  mind  unbiassed  would  for  a 
moment  think  of  calling  it  perfect.  Even  the  men  who 
contend  most  earnestly  for  its  perfection,  should  they 
find  precisely  the  same  in  one  of  the  other  great  Bibles 
of  the  world,  would,  without  the  slightest  hesitation, 
pronounce  it  defective.  Why,  then,  is  such  morality  set 
up  in  this  day  and  age  as  a  standard?  Can  it  fail  to 
do  grave  harm — especially  among  the  young?  Think  of 
millions  of  Sunday-school  children,  with  their  young  and 
plastic  minds,  being  systematically  taught  from  Sunday 
to  Sunday,  for  years,  such  things  as  that  it  was  right  for 
Joshua  to  perpetrate  his  massacres  of  men,  women,  and 
babes  ;  for  Jehu  to  murder  all  the  house  of  Ahab  ;  for 
Moses  and  Aaron  to  falsify  to  Pharaoh  ;  and  for  the  Jew- 
ish people  to  put  witches  to  death,  and  hold  slaves,  and 
the  like  (things,  all  of  them,  which  we  are  told  God  com- 
manded) ;  and  then  reflect  what  a  foundation  all  this  lays, 
in  these  millions  of  children,  upon  which  to  build  virtu- 
ous characters  and  sensitive  consciences,  and  pure  and 
high  manhood  and  womanhood !  Can  anything  ever 
compensate  for  or  make  good  such  an  utter  confusion 
and  perversion  of  moral  ideas  in  the  minds  of  the  young? 

No  Room  for  Indifference. — Thus  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  doctrine  of  Bible  infallibility  is  not  something  which 


BIBLE  INFALLIBILITY.  28/ 

we  may  any  of  us  be  indifferent  to ;  it  is  not  something 
with  reference  to  which  the  truth  may  be  known  or  not 
known,  and  all  will  be  the  same.  There  is  a  weighty 
and  solemn  religious  obligation  resting  on  us  to  deny 
the  truth  of  a  dogma  which  aims  so  cruel  a  blow  at  the 
character  of  the  Being  we  worship,  and  the  validity  of 
our  moral  intuitions.  The  highest  and  holiest  things 
of  religion  and  life  are  very  deeply  at  stake.  As  we 
care  for  religion,  we  must  not  shrink.  When  we  come 
upon  representations  of  God  in  the  Bible  that  are  degrad- 
ing and  immoral,  we  must  say :  "  They  are  wrong ;  the 
men  who  wrote  them  had  the  low  and  imperfect  ideas  of 
their  age  ;  we,  to-day,  standing  in  the  light  that  shines 
from  Jesus,  and  from  the  eighteen  centuries  since,  wor- 
ship a  God  vastly  higher  and  better  than  the  God  of 
those  imperfect  old-time  pictures." 

While  we  continue  to  hold  earnestly  to  the  Bible, 
we  must  discriminate.  While  we  cannot  appreciate  too 
highly  the  rich  legacy  of  moral  and  religious  truth  and 
sentiment  that  comes  down  to  us  in  its  revered  pages, 
let  us  not  be  guilty  of  the  fatal  folly  of  consecrating 
error  because  it  happens  to  be  associated  with  truth. 
While,  if  we  understand  it  intelligently  and  use  it  ration- 
ally, we  may  well  keep  the  Bible  in  our  Sunday-schools 
and  churches  and  homes,  as  our  great  and,  in  a  true 
sense,  our  sacred  book  of  religion,  we  must  beware  that 
we  do  not  make  it  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing  to  our- 
selves, and  especially  to  our  children,  by  accepting  it, 
and  teaching  them  to  accept  it,  as  what  it  is  not — viz.,  an 
infallible  booh 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

THE   BIBLE  AND   INSPIRATION. 

As  we  draw  near  the  end  of  our  study,  several  ques- 
tions press  for  answers. 

Inspiration. — In  the  light  of  the  facts  which  we  have 
discovered,  may  we  say  that  the  Bible  is  a  work  of  divine 
inspiration? 

I  reply :  That  evidently  must  depend  upon  what  we 
mean  by  inspiration.  If  by  the  word  we  understand 
that  barren,  mechanical,  unspiritual  signification  which 
has  too  often  been  given  to  it  in  the  past,  which  makes 
the  inspired  writers  mere  passive  tools  or  instruments — 
flutes  played  on  by  an  almighty  player ;  penmen  with 
hands  miraculously  guided  to  write  a  message  in  the  in- 
ception and  giving  of  which  they  have  no  responsibility 
— then  we  must  answer,  as  with  ever-increasing  clearness 
and  unanimity  modern  biblical  scholarship  is  everywhere 
answering :  No ;  the  Sacred  Scriptures  give  no  evidence 
of  such  an  inspired  origin.  But  if  by  inspiration  we  mean 
something  vital  instead  of  mechanical;  an  inspiration 
human  as  well  as  divine,  and  divine  because  so  nobly 
human ;  an  inspiration  in  which  men  are  not  passive,  but 
active,  intense,  alive,  quickened  by  touch  with  the  Infinite 
Mind,  illuminated  by  '*  that  Light  which  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world,"  open  to  the  incoming 
of  the  tides  of  the  Infinite  Life,  and  so  are  made  seers  and 
prophets,  guides  and  leaders  of  their  fellows  in  the  things 
of  the    spirit — in    a   word,    if    by    inspiration    we    mean 


THE  BIBLE  AND  INSPIRATION.  289 

something  sufficiently  large,  noble,  spiritual,  then  we  are 
compelled  to  reply :  The  Bible  is  rich  in  inspiration — in- 
spiration which  the  growing  scholarship  of  our  time  is 
not  dimming,  but  making  more  clear. 

Of  course,  no  inteUigent  scholar  thinks  of  affirming 
equal  inspiration  in  all  its  parts ;  indeed,  some  portions, 
as  we  have  seen,  bear  no  marks  of  inspiration  whatever. 
But  when  we  come  to  other  parts,  words  are  too  poor 
adequately  to  express  the  depth  and  richness  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  power  which  they  reveal.  From 
what  source  but  that  which  is  eternal  in  God  could  have 
come  the  truth  of  those  great  passages,  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New,  which  instantly  flash  on  our  minds 
when  we  think  of  what  is  loftiest  in  religion  ?  At  what 
fountain  but  that  of  the  world's  divinest  inspiration 
could  those  men  have  drunk,  whose  words  have  sounded 
down  the  ages,  thrilling  and  inspiring  the  hearts  of  un- 
told millions  as  otherwise  they  have  never  been  thrilled 
and  inspired? 

Revelation. — Is  the  Bible  revelation  from  God?  Or, 
better.  Does  it  contain  revelation  from  God  ? 

Here,  again,  the  answer  which  competent  scholarship 
gives  is  Yes,  or  No,  according  as  we  mean  by  revelation 
something  large  or  small,  adequate  or  inadequate,  spiritual 
and  vital,  or  formal  and  mechanical.  Says  Channing: 
*'  Jesus  came  to  reveal  the  Father.  But  is  God,  the  In- 
finite and  Universal  Father,  made  known  only  by  a  single 
voice  heard  ages  ago  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  or  by 
the  Sea  of  Tiberias?  Is  it  an  unknown  tongue  that  the 
heavens  and  earth  forever  utter?  Is  nature's  page  a 
blank?  Does  the  human  soul  report  nothing  of  its  Cre- 
ator? Does  conscience  announce  no  Authority  higher 
than  its  own  ?  Does  reason  discern  no  trace  of  an  Intel- 
19 


290  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

ligence,  that  it  cannot  comprehend,  and  yet  of  which  it  is 
itself  a  ray?  Does  the  heart  find  in  the  circuits  of  crea- 
tion no  Friend  worthy  of  trust  and  love  ?  " 

Says  Heber  Newton :  '^  Within  the  spirit  of  man  is  the 
true  mount  of  God,  where  the  Eternal  One  comes  down 
to  reveal  himself.  Revelation  is  light.  Wherever  there 
is  a  flash  of  light,  spiritual  or  ethical ;  wherever  the  dark 
problems  of  man's  origin  and  nature  and  destiny  grow 
luminous ;  wherever  the  being  and  personality  and  char- 
acter of  God  come  forth  from  the  darkness,  thrilling  us 
with  a  fresh  sense  of  worship,  with  higher  hope  and  faith 
and  love,  there  is  a  real  revelation  to  our  spirits." 

These  words  of  two  eminent  modern  religious  teachers 
at  least  hint  the  larger  view  of  revelation  which  biblical 
scholarship  is  doing  so  much  to  give  us  in  place  of  the 
old,  smaller,  and  more  mechanical  view.  With  this  mean- 
ing of  the  word,  there  can  be  no  question  about  our 
Scriptures  containing  revelation  of  God  and  from  God. 

Yet,  not  God's  only  revelation.  On  the  whole  the 
highest  and  best,  doubtless,  that  the  ancient  world  pro- 
duced, but  not  all  that  the  world  has  seen.  For,  dare  we 
push  aside  all  the  other  sacred  books  of  mankind — the 
Hindu  and  Persian  Bibles,  older  than  our  own ;  the  Bud- 
dhist Bible,  containing  some  of  the  loftiest  ethical  teach- 
ings of  the  world,  and  held  to  be  sacred  and  full  of  divine 
truth  by  hundreds  of  millions  of  men;  the  Chinese 
Bibles,  ancient  and  venerable  books ;  and  the  Koran,  the 
Bible  of  some  of  the  noblest  peoples  of  the  past — shall  we 
push  aside  all  these  sacred  books,  and  declare  that  there 
is  no  voice  of  God  in  them  ?  For  one,  I  dare  not  do  that. 
Nor  dare  I  deny  that  God  has  revealed  himself  through 
thousands  of  great  and  pure  souls  whose  thoughts  fill  the 
books  of  all  our  libraries ;  and  that  he  is  revealing  him- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  INSPIRATION.  29 1 

self  still,  and  ever  more  and  more  fully  revealing  himself 
as  the  ages  go  by,  in  nature,  from  flower  up  to  star ;  in 
science,  through  all  its  domain  ;  in  art,  in  poetry,  in  music, 
in  history,  in  the  mind  and  conscience  and  heart  of  man. 
I  dare  not  say  that  any  valuable  knowledge,  or  any  help- 
ful truth,  or  any  noble  aspiration  or  inspiration  or  impulse, 
ever  comes  to  man,  but  it  comes  from  God,  and  is  in  just 
so  far  God  revealing  himself.  God's  revelation  confined 
to  a  single  book  or  set  of  books?  All  the  books  in 
the  world  are  too  small  to  hold  God's  revelation.  And 
if  book-writing  goes  on  for  ten  thousand  years,  until 
libraries  vast  as  the  old  library  of  Alexandria  are  multi- 
plied as  the  stars,  still  the  fountain  of  God's  revelation 
will  be  as  far  as  ever  from  running  dry. 

The  Bible  as  the  Producer  of  Religion  and  Morals, 
versus  Religion  and  Morals  as  the  Producer  of  the 
Bible. — Is  the  Bible  the  source  of  religion  and  of  morals  ? 
If  there  had  never  come  into  existence  any  such  Bible 
as  ours,  would  there  have  been  any  religion,  that  is,  any 
true  religion  among  men,  or  any  morality  ? 

Of  course,  in  the  light  of  the  preceding  discussion  these 
questions  seem  scarcely  less  than  superfluous;  and  yet 
they  are  so  often  asked  among  certain  classes  of  sincere 
and  earnest  persons,  that  they  ought  perhaps  to  be  defi- 
nitely met  here.  It  will  be  a  sufficient  answer,  however, 
if  I  simply  point  out  in  a  word  the  bearing  of  what  we 
have  discovered  in  preceding  chapters  upon  these  ques- 
tions. 

Both  religion  and  morals  had  an  existence  among  men 
long  before  our  Bible  or  any  part  of  our  Bible  was  born. 
In  parts  of  the  world  where  our  Bible  has  never  been 
heard  of,  they  have  both  flourished  and  borne  beautiful 
fruits  for  thousands  of  years.     In  the  earlier  pages  of  this 


292  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

book  it  has  been  shown  that  many  of  the  purest  and 
loftiest  moral  and  religious  teachings  of  both  our  Old 
Testament  and  New  are  found,  in  greater  or  less  promi- 
nence, in  other  sacred  books  of  mankind — some  of  those 
sacred  books  being  of  earlier  date  than  our  own.  And 
when  we  search  the  literature  and  history  even  of  peoples 
that  did  not  have  any  sacred  book — as,  for  example,  the 
Greeks  and  Romans — we  find  there  numerous  exhibitions 
of  noble  virtues;  while  as  to  piety,  we  find  there  much  of 
that  also,  and  of  such  kind  as  gives  evidence  of  being  per- 
vaded with  the  spirit  of  true  and  pure  worship. 

Thus  we  see  that  instead  of  our  Bible  having  been  the 
creator  of  morals  in  the  world,  the  very  opposite  is  true. 
It  was  morals  and  religion  in  the  world — ever  growing 
and  developing,  ever  struggling  from  dimness,  confusion, 
and  weakness  in  men's  minds,  toward  greater  definiteness 
and  strength — that  produced  our  Bible  and  all  other 
sacred  books  of  mankind.  And  if  our  Bible  and  all 
others  nov/  existing  were  destroyed,  religion  and  morality 
would  produce  others,  and  others,  so  long  as  others  were 
needed.  The  foundations  of  virtue  and  religion  are  not 
in  any  book,  but  in  God,  in  the  Nature  of  Things,  in  the 
Soul  of  Man. 

Not  but  that  the  Bible,  once  produced,  has  helped  very 
efficiently  to  carry  forward  the  moral  and  religious  devel- 
opment of  the  nations  among  whom  it  has  come  ;  so  that, 
as  a  rule,  these  nations  owe  much  to  it,  and  would  have 
had  very  different  histories  if  it  had  not  made  its  appear- 
ance. Indeed,  we  may  call  our  Bible,  in  a  certain  true 
sense,  the  fountain  from  which  the  particular  form  of 
religion  known  as  Christianity  has  come,  just  as  we  may 
call  the  Vedas  the  fountain  from  which  Brahmanism  came. 
Nevertheless,  we  cannot  too  clearly  understand  that  it 


THE  BIBLE  AND  INSPIRATION.  293 

was  not  the  Bible  that  created  religion ;  it  was  religion 
and  righteousness  that  created  the  Bible. 

Distinguishing  the  True  from  the  False,  the  Inspired 
from  the  Uninspired,  in  the  Bible. — If  there  are  errors 
and  imperfections  in  the  Bible — that  is  to  say,  if  the 
Bible  is  not  all  infallible  inspiration — how  are  we  to  know 
what  parts  are  true  and  inspired,  and  what  parts  are 
untrue  and  uninspired ;  in  other  words,  what  parts  we 
should  accept  and  what  parts  we  should  reject  ?  This 
question  often  causes  real  trouble  to  earnest  and  consci- 
entious minds ;  and  yet  it  seems  strange  that  it  should, 
for  the  answer  is  surely  very  simple  and  plain. 

With  reference  to  all  scientific  and  historical  questions, 
and  all  questions  oi  fact,  connected  with  the  Bible,  we  are 
to  find  out  what  is  truth  and  what  is  not  truth  in  exactly 
the  same  way  that  we  find  out  truth  and  falsehood  any- 
where else  ;  viz.,  by  inquiry.  By  honest  inquiry  and  can- 
did investigation  the  more  important  of  these  questions 
of  fact  can  easily  be  solved. 

As  to  the  way  we  are  to  find  out  what  we  should  accept 
and  what  reject  in  the  direction  of  the  moral  teachings  of 
the  Bible,  the  matter  is,  if  possible,  simpler  still.  Indeed, 
there  is  not  and  never  has  been  any  serious  difficulty  on 
this  score,  certainly  not  to  persons  who  study  the  Bible 
earnestly  and  rationally.  The  great  leading  doctrines  of 
morality  are  clear  and  unmistakable.  They  are  written 
in  the  very  nature  of  man,  and  as  the  race  advances  to 
higher  and  more  perfect  civilization  these  come  out  into 
greater  and  greater  distinctness  ;  and  that,  too,  even  where 
men  have  never  known  anything  of  our  Bible.  Certainly, 
then,  it  is  a  strange  thing  if  we,  in  the  midst  of  the  high- 
est civilization  that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  require  to 
have  a  Bible  that  is  supernaturally  infallible  in  order  to 


^94 


ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


know  virtue  from  vice,  and  the  noble  from  the  base  in 
human  conduct.  When  we  read  other  books  we  find  no 
difficulty,  as  a  rule,  in  forming  a  judgment  as  to  what  in 
them  is  excellent  and  admirable,  and  what  is  degrading 
and  wrong.  Why,  then,  should  we  find  it  difficult,  in 
reading  the  Bible,  to  decide  between  the  morally  good 
and  the  morally  bad  in  it?  Indeed,  we  are  all  constantly 
thus  deciding,  whatever  our  theories  about  the  Bible  may 
be.  This  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  all  Christian  people 
to-day,  whether  orthodox  or  heterodox,  reject  such  of  its 
teachings  as  those  about  slavery,  polygamy,  and  the  put- 
ting to  death  of  witches,  and  yet  accept  its  Ten  Com- 
mandments, its  Golden  Rule,  its  doctrine  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  love. 

And  so,  too,  with  regard  to  the  great  spiritual  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible ;  these  all  carry  their  credentials  and 
authority  in  themselves.  Such  utterances  as  the  Beati- 
tudes and  Paul's  chapter  on  Love,  it  is  impossible  that 
men  should  mistake  about.  The  whole  matter  reduces 
just  to  this,  and  nothing  could  be  simpler:  Whatever  in 
the  Bible,  as  men  read  it,  helps  them,  strengthens  them, 
gives  them  nobler  conceptions  of  God,  increases  their 
faith  in  humanity,  widens  their  sympathies,  purifies  their 
desires,  deepens  their  earnestness,  brightens  their  hope, 
sends  them  forth  with  a  more  abiding  consecration  to  the 
true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  is  to  be  received  with 
as  much  assurance  as  if  it  were  spoken  to  every  one  by 
an  audible  voice  from  the  skies.  On  the  other  hand, 
whatever  in  the  Bible,  or  anywhere  else,  tends  to  degrade 
men's  conceptions  of  God,  or  confuse  moral  distinctions, 
or  lower  their  ideals  of  life  or  standards  of  duty,  or  dim 
their  spiritual  vision,  is  certainly  not  from  God,  if  God  is 
a  being  of  truth  and  moral  perfection,  worthy  of  men's 


THE  BIBLE   AND  INSPIRATION.  295 

worship ;  and  therefore  no  ecclesiastical  consecration  or 
sanction,  and  no  alleged  attestation  of  miracles,  or  any- 
thing else,  can  make  it  their  duty  to  do  anything  else 
than  reject  it. 

Place  the  Beatitudes  side  by  side  with  the  imprecations 
of  the  109th  Psalm;  or  the  story  of  treacherous  Jael 
secretly  murdering  one  whom  she  ought  to  have  be- 
friended, beside  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan  ;  or 
the  declaration  in  Ecclesiastes,  "  Man  has  no  pre-eminence 
above  a  beast,"  beside  John's  declaration,  "  Beloved,  now 
are  we  the  sons  of  God  " ;  and  is  there  any  difficulty  in 
understanding  which  is  from  above  and  which  is  not? 
The  simple  truth  is,  when  men  take  up  the  Bible  to  read 
it  as  they  would  any  other  book,  without  artificial  infalli- 
bility theories  to  disturb  their  common  sense  or  introduce 
confusion  into  their  judgments,  the  trouble  we  are  con- 
sidering almost  or  altogether  disappears:  the  practical 
difficulty  of  knowing  what  in  the  Bible  to  accept  and 
what  to  reject,  which,  viewed  from  a  distance,  seems  to 
some  so  great  a  difficulty,  melts  away  into  thin  air,  and 
is  found  to  have  been  really  little  more  than  a  theologi- 
cal dream. 

The  Bible  as  Compared  with  other  Books. — Is  the 
Bible,  then,  to  be  placed  on  the  same  level  with  other 
books?  To  this  question  I  reply,  in  accord  with  what 
has  more  than  once  been  said  in  the  preceding  pages: 
The  most  authoritative  criticism  and  judgment  seem, 
with  almost  perfect  unanimity,  to  answer.  No  !  Though 
there  are  in  the  world  many  cataracts,  there  is  only  one 
Niagara  ;  though  there  are  many  countries  that  have  pro- 
duced noble  art,  yet  is  there  only  one  Greece  ;  though  all 
nations  and  ages  have  had  their  poets,  yet  the  world  has 
produced  but  one  Shakespeare.     So,  though  there  are 


296  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

many  lands  that  have  given  birth  to  great  and  noble  reli- 
gions, it  seems  not  invidious  to  say  that  there  is  only  one 
Palestine;  and  though  in  connection  with  these  various 
religions  have  appeared  many  great  and  pure  religious 
teachers,  yet  has  the  race  produced  but  one  Jesus. 
Nature  is  always  sparing  of  her  very  best  products, 
whether  in  the  world  of  matter  or  of  mind.  Evidently 
her  best  moral  and  spiritual  product  of  that  old  world 
from  which  all  our  great  religions  and  the  deepest  streams 
of  our  moral  and  spiritual  life  have  come,  appeared  in 
Judea  and  Galilee,  and  is  represented  in  this  collection  of 
Hebrew  religious  literature  which  we  call  our  Bible. 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

THE   PERMANENT  VALUE   OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Incidentally  much  has  been  said  already  regarding 
the  value  of  the  Bible.  More,  however,  remains  to  be 
said.  Let  us  inquire  definitely  in  what  that  value  con- 
sists. 

(i.)  The  Bible  as  a  Literary  Production. — Portions  of 
the  Bible,  at  least,  have  confessedly  a  high  literary  value. 
It  seems  to  be  the  judgment  of  the  most  competent  crit- 
ics that  certain  books  of  both  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New  are  not  out  of  place  side  by  side  with  the  best  liter- 
ary productions  of  any  age  or  country.  There  is  no  lack 
of  authorities  who  rank  some  of  the  Psalms  with  the  lyrics 
of  Pindar  and  Wordsworth  ;  the  Book  of  Job  with  the 
tragedies  of  Sophocles  and  Shakespeare ;  the  Prophecy 
of  Isaiah  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  with  any  reli- 
gious or  ethical  writing  in  the  world.  Probably  few  per- 
sons will  dispute  with  me  when  I  call  the  Bible,  as  a  whole, 
as  it  exists  in  the  hands  of  the  people  to-day,  our  greatest 
and  noblest  English  classic.  The  first  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  the  vernacular  was  made  so  early,  and  so  soon 
thereafter  it  became  so  emphatically  the  one  great  book 
of  the  people,  that  it  has  exerted  an  influence  in  mould- 
ing the  English  language,  and  indeed  English  literature, 
vastly  greater  than  any  other  book.  We  may  almost  say 
that  the  English  language  of  to-day  is  formed  on  the  basis 
of  King  James's  translation  of  i6i  i.  Probably  quite  nine 
scholars  out  of  ten,  of  those  best  qualified  to  judge,  if 


298  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

called  upon  to  select  the  best  model  in  the  language,  of 
simple,  terse,  vigorous,  and  at  the  same  time  elegant 
English,  would  choose  the  Bible,  in  our  common  trans- 
lation. 

(2.)  The  Bible  interwoven  indissolubly  with  every 
Phase  and  Department  of  our  Civilization. — The  Bible 
occupies  a  far  more  central  and  important  place  in  Euro- 
pean and  American  civilization  than  any  other  book.  In- 
deed it  is  doubtful  if  a  man,  voyaging  through  our  modern 
Christendom  as  a  student  of  its  history,  its  literature,  its 
philosophy,  its  art,  its  politics,  its  institutions,  would  find 
himself  so  much  inconvenienced  by  being  unacquainted 
with  Homer,  Plato,  Virgil,  Cicero,  Dante,  and  enough 
others  to  make  a  good  dozen  of  the  greatest  writers  of 
the  world,  outside  of  the  Bible,  as  he  would  by  being  un- 
acquainted with  the  single  volume  of  our  Sacred  Script- 
ures. 

In  nothing,  perhaps,  does  this  more  plainly  appear  than 
in  art.  Going  through  the  great  art  galleries  of  Christen- 
dom, one  finds  that  the  art  of  whole  ages,  and  some  of 
these  the  most  productive  since  classic  Rome  and  Athens, 
is  well-nigh  exclusively  occupied  with  Bible  themes.  So 
closely  was  the  art  of  Europe,  from  the  conversion  of 
Rome  until  very  recent  times,  allied  with  the  Christian 
religion,  that  a  knowledge  of  gravitation  is  scarcely  more 
essential  to  an  understanding  of  astronomy  or  physics, 
than  is  a  knowledge  of  the  Bible  to  an  understanding  of 
European  art  as  a  whole. 

But  a  careful  student  of  European  literature,  history, 
philosophy,  politics,  7m6.  institutions  will  hardly  be  willing 
to  say  that  the  Bible  has  a  less  close  connection  with  any 
of  these  than  with  art.  Its  connection  with  these  may 
not  be  so  direct  and  easy  to  trace  as  with  art,  but  as  we 


THE  PERMANENT  VALUE   OF  THE  BIBLE. 


299 


look  deeply  into  the  heart  of  things,  we  discover  that  it  is 
really  scarcely  less  intimate. 

(3.)  The  Bible  as  a  History  of  the  Evolution  of 
Religion. — We  have  in  the  Bible  a  far  more  vivid  and 
impressive  picture  than  can  be  found  anywhere  else  in 
literature,  of  what  I  may  call  the  evolution  of  religion  and 
morals  on  a  large  scale.  The  Bible  presents  us  with  the 
literary  memorials  of  the  growth  of  the  people  of  Israel, 
through  ten  or  twelve  centuries  of  varied  and  wonderful 
history,  from  ideas  of  God  and  worship  and  morality  little 
above  those  of  the  heathen  peoples  about  them,  up  into 
such  ideas  as  those  taught  by  Jesus,  which  are  confessed 
to  stand  in  the  front  rank  of  the  loftiest  religious  and 
ethical  teachings  of  the  world.  But  this  point  needs  only 
the  briefest  mention  here,  as  it  has  been  considered  with 
some  fulness  in  two  preceding  chapters.  We  speak  of  the 
growth  of  the  English  constitution  as  something  marvel- 
ous, and  the  history  of  it  which  comes  down  to  us  as 
perhaps  the  most  valuable /^/^V/r^/ bequest  that  the  past 
has  made  to  the  English-speaking  world.  Somewhat  such 
a  bequest  as  this,  only  far  more  valuable,  does  the  religious 
world  have  in  the  history  of  the  growth  of  religion  as  por- 
trayed in  our  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

(4.)  The  Bible  and  Monotheism.— The  Bible  is  the 
parent  of  Monotheism  in  the  world,  so  far  as  a  book  can 
be.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  three  great  monotheistic 
religions  all  send  back  their  roots  directly  or  indirectly 
into  our  Scriptures — Judaism  and  Christianity  directly, 
and  Mohammedanism  indirectly.  We  are  apt  to  give  the 
Bible  credit  for  nothing  only  what  allies  itself  with  Chris- 
tianity. This  is  wrong.  Judaism  is  a  noble  religion,  and 
has  exerted,  not  only  before  the  Christian  era  but  since, 
a  great  influence  in  the  world.     When  all  is  known  that 


300  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE  BIBLE. 

history  has  to  tell  us,  it  will  probably  appear  that  our 
modern  civilization  is  more  indebted  to  Israel  than  we 
have  been  willing  to  confess,  not  only  as  regards  religion, 
but  as  regards  commerce,  education,  science,  and  letters.^ 

So,  too,  Mohammedanism  is,  in  some  respects  at  least, 
a  noble  religion  ;  and  certainly  its  influence,  not  only 
upon  the  world's  religious  history,  but  also  upon  its 
intellectual  and  political,  has  been  very  powerful  and  far- 
reaching  ;  and  if  we  may  trust  the  accounts  that  come  to 
us  from  Asia  and  Africa,  it  is  to-day  spreading  in  the 
world  with  great  rapidity. 

But  Mohammedanism  can  be  understood  only  very 
imperfectly  without  a  knowledge  of  the  Bible — so  truly 
the  child  of  the  Bible  as  well  as  of  the  Koran  is  it ;  while 
Judaism  cannot  be  understood  at  all  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  Old  Testament. 

It  is  most  remarkable  that  one  book  should  thus  be 
so  closely  related  to  the  three  great  monotheistic  relig- 
ions of  the  world.  This  fact  alone  may  justly  be  claimed 
as  giving  our  Bible  a  pre-eminence  over  all  the  other 
sacred  books  of  mankind. 

(5.)  The  Bible  as  a  Book  of  Practical  Religion. — But 
it  is  not  until  we  come  to  study  the  Bible  as  a  book  of 
practical  religion,  or  conduct,  that,  after  all,  we  approach 
its  highest  value.  With  all  its  imperfections,  it  must  still 
be  confessed  to  be,  on  the  whole,  a  book  of  unequaled 

'  For  an  account  of  the  great  influence  exercised  by  the  Jews  in  Rome 
and  throughout  the  Roman  Empire  during  the  early  Christian  centuries,  see 
Professor  Huidekoper's  "  Judaism  in  Rome." 

For  a  suggestive  epitome  of  the  work  they  did  in  the  middle  ages  in 
founding  and  endowing  universities,  and  promoting  science,  especially 
medical  science,  see  Draper's  "Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,"  pp. 
414,  417  (Harpers'  edition).  For  a  fuller  account  see  Graetz's  "  History  of 
the  Jews."     Also  see  "  The  Jewish  Encyclopaedia,"  numerous  articles. 


THE  PERMANENT  VALUE   OF  THE  BIBLE.         30 1 

moral  earnestness,  incitement,  inspiration.  With  an  itera- 
tion and  reiteration  that  is  untiring,  and  with  an  emphasis 
that  is  sometimes  fairly  tremendous,  do  all  the  greater 
writers  of  the  Bible  impress  upon  us  the  grandeur  of 
the  moral  side  of  life — the  importance  of  justice,  truth, 
mercy,  but  especially  righteousness,  in  human  conduct. 
A  body  of  men  of  deeper  moral  earnestness,  or  more 
brave  and  loyal  to  what  they  believed  to  be  true  and 
right  in  religion,  perhaps  the  world  never  saw,  than  were 
the  Old  Testament  prophets.  Bigoted  sometimes  ;  coarse 
and  cruel  sometimes ;  true  children  of  a  rude  age,  some 
of  them  ;  occupying  very  different  planes,  morally  and 
spiritually,  as  well  as  intellectually  and  socially — they 
yet,  as  a  whole,  were  grand  men,  whose  words  are  even 
to-day  moral  bugle-calls  to  the  race. 

Matthew  Arnold  has  well  said  :  "  So  long  as  the  world 
lasts,  all  who  want  to  make  progress  in  righteousness  will 
come  to  Israel  for  inspiration,  as  to  the  people  who  have 
had  the  sense  for  righteousness  most  glowing  and  strong- 
est ;  and  in  hearing  and  reading  the  words  which  Israel 
has  uttered  for  us,  carers  for  conduct  will  find  a  glow 
and  a  force  which  they  could  find  nowhere  else.  As  well 
imagine  a  man  with  a  sense  for  sculpture  not  cultivating 
it  by  the  help  of  the  remains  of  Greek  art,  or  a  man  with 
a  sense  for  poetry  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of 
Homer  and  Shakespeare,  as  a  man  with  a  sense  for  con- 
duct [that  is,  righteousness  or  virtue]  not  cultivating  it 
by  the  help  of  the  Bible." 

(6.)  The  Bible  as  a  Book  of  Spiritual  Consolation 
and  Quickening. — So,  too,  with  regard  to  all  that  which 
we  commonly  call  the  spiritual  side  of  life — that  side  of 
life  which  includes  love,  gratitude,  reverence,  prayer, 
hope,  faith,  aspiration,  worship — it  is  not  too  much  to 


302  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

say  that  the  world  has  produced  no  book  which  has 
proved  itself  equally  powerful,  as  a  help  and  inspirer  of 
men  here.  Such  passages  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
the  thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians,  the  four- 
teenth, fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  chapters  of 
John,  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Luke,  the  eighth  chapter 
of  Romans,  the  fifth  and  sixth  chapters  of  Ephesians, 
the  twenty-third,  twenty-seventh,  thirty-seventh,  one 
hundred  and  third,  one  hundred  and  thirty-ninth,  and  a 
score  more  Psalms,  and  selections  from  the  last  sixteen 
chapters  of  Isaiah,  are  spiritual  food  than  which  the  voice 
of  the  ages  declares  there  has  been  no  richer  given  to 
the  race.  They  are  fountains  which  never  run  dry,  but 
which,  repair  to  them  often  as  they  would,  untold  mil- 
lions have  found  always  full  of  water  for  the  soul's  deep- 
est thirst. 

*•  We  search  the  world  for  truth,  we  cull 
The  good,  the  pure,  the  beautiful 
From  graven  stone  and  written  scroll. 
From  the  old  flower- fields  of  the  soul ; 
And,  weary  seekers  of  the  best, 
We  come  back  laden  from  our  quest. 
To  find  that  all  the  sages  said 
Is  in  the  book  our  mothers  read." 

These  words  of  Whittier,  as  applied  to  the  moral,  but 
especially  to  what  I  have  called  the  more  purely  spiritual^ 
teachings  of  the  Bible,  are  scarcely  too  strong. 

They  suggest,  too,  one  other  thing  about  the  Bible — 
perhaps  not  often  enough  thought  of — which  to  multi- 
tudes gives  it,  and  always  will,  if  not  a  higher,  at  least  a 
more  tender  and  heart-felt  value  than  it  could  ever  other- 
wise have.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  book  "  our 
mothers  read  " — in  other  words,  that  it  is  a  book  which 
has  come  down  to  us  all,  as  the  one  great  sacred  volume 


THE  PERMANENT   VALUE   OF  THE   BIBLE.        303 

of  the  Christian  centuries,  hallowed  by  the  dearest  and 
grandest  of  associations  and  memories.  It  is  not  only 
our  book  of  religion,  but  it  is  a  book  rich  with  the  very 
life-blood  of  all  that  was  highest  and  holiest  in  the  hopes 
and  fears,  the  joys  and  sorrows,  the  faiths,  the  prayers, 
the  aspirations  and  yearnings  of  our  fathers,  and  our 
fathers'  fathers,  and  nearly  all  the  noblest  men  and  saint- 
liest  women  of  all  the  Christian  ages.  How  much  that 
means,  let  human  hearts  answer! 

Concluding  Words — Friends  and  Enemies  of  the 
Bible—"  All  the  Bible  or  None."— The  Higher  Criticism 
of  the  Bible  is  at  present  under  fire.  Against  the  new 
light  which  scholarship  has  brought  and  is  bringing  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  many  warning  voices 
are  raised.  The  brave,  strong,  true  men  who  are  lead- 
ing this  advance  are  often  called  hard  names,  denounced 
as  destroyers,  tried  by  ecclesiastical  councils  as  heretics. 
From  many  quarters  we  are  told  that  they  are  trying 
to  destroy  the  Bible.  But  the  exact  opposite  is  true. 
They  are  trying  to  save  the  Bible.  The  Higher  Criticism 
is  constructive — constructive  along  the  only  lines  on  which 
real  and  permanent  construction  is  possible.  We  hear 
much  about  *'  friends "  and  "  enemies "  of  the  Bible. 
There  are  no  such  enemies  of  anything  as  short-sighted 
friends.  They  who  are  laboring,  as  the  friends  of  rever- 
ent and  sound  biblical  learning  are,  to  place  the  Bible 
upon  a  basis  that  is  rational  and  true,  and  hence  that 
cannot  be  moved,  are  the  Bible's  real  friends.  They  who 
insist  on  keeping  it  on  a  perishable  basis,  which  tends 
ever  to  melt  away  before  free  thought  and  candid  inves- 
tigation, as  ice  before  fire,  are  the  Bible's  real  enemies. 

They,  too,  are  enemies  of  the  Bible  who  say  such 
utterly  senseless  things  as  the  word  heard  often  on  shal 


304  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

low  lips :  "  The  Bible  is  either  all  true  or  all  false ! " 
**  We  must  either  believe  all  or  reject  all." 

Believe  all  or  reject  all?  Indeed!  This  is  a  strange 
rule.  Then  must  I  also  believe  all  my  Shakespeare,  or 
reject  it  all?  Must  I  throw  away  my  Homer  if  it  con- 
tains errors?  May  I  say  to  the  astronomer  who  tells  me 
there  are  spots  on  the  sun :  "  Thank  you ;  no,  sir ;  my 
motto  is,  accept  all  or  reject  all ;  unless  I  can  be  assured 
that  the  solar  face  is  all  bright  I  shall  afifirm  that  no  part 
is  bright"?  Shall  we  say  to  men  about  us:  "You  must 
give  up  the  use  of  corn  as  food,  or  else  eat  it,  husks  and 
all;  and  wheat,  or  else  consume  that,  chaff  and  all"? 
Have  discrimination  and  judgment  no  longer  any  place 
in  the  world  ?  Or,  if  we  may  use  these  excellent  quali- 
ties still  in  other  matters,  may  we  not  also  in  religion  ? 
Is  there  any  good  reason  why  I  should  treat  my  Bible 
less  fairly  than  my  Shakespeare,  or  Homer,  or  Plato  ? 

This  strange  rule,  "  all  or  none,"  seems  usually  to  be 
insisted  on,  as  regards  the  Scriptures,  with  the  thought 
that  of  course  men  will  shrink  from  giving  up  all  the 
Bible,  and  hence,  by  pressing  the  alternative,  they  may 
be  driven  to  accept  it  all.  It  is  a  sort  of  thumb-screw 
arrangement,  by  means  of  which  it  is  supposed  men  can 
be  driven  to  adopt  the  theory  of  Bible  infallibility.  But 
what  really  is  the  result  ?  Melancholy  enough.  It  tends 
to  make  men  hypocrites ;  under  this  pressure  many  will 
profess  to  believe  it  all,  who  do  not,  and  cannot.  It  tends 
to  kill  thought  and  inquiry,  and  to  make  men  bigots ;  for 
the  only  way  that  men  who  have  once  opened  their  eyes 
and  seen  the  imperfections  of  the  Bible  can  ever  again 
accept  those  imperfections  as  perfections  is  to  intellectu- 
ally stultify  themselves.  It  tends  to  produce  utter  reject- 
ers of  the  Bible  and  all  religion ;  for  many,  too  honest  to 


THE  PERMANENT  VALUE   OF  THE  BIBLE.        30$ 

pretend  to  believe  what  they  cannot,  take  the  preachers 
and  religious  teachers  at  their  word,  and  say :  "  Very 
well ;  if  it  is  accept  all  or  reject  all,  then  we  reject  all. 
Think,  we  will ;  reason,  we  will ;  if  the  Bible  and  religion 
require  us  to  fetter  our  intellects  and  believe  falsehood 
is  truth,  we  prefer  to  turn  our  backs  upon  both."  Thus 
does  this  foolish,  this  baseless  alternative,  urged  by  well- 
meaning  but  short-sighted  and  ignorant  believers  in  an 
out-grown  dogma,  drive  men  unto  unbelief  and  rejection 
of  all  religion. 

It  was  Goethe,  who  could  not  admit  for  a  moment  that 
the  Bible  is  without  imperfections,  who  penned  these 
words :  ''  The  great  veneration  which  the  Bible  has 
received  from  so  many  peoples  and  generations  of  earth 
is  due  to  its  intrinsic  worth.  .  .  .  The  higher  the 
centuries  rise  in  culture  the  more  will  the  Bible  be  made 
use  of  by  all  who  are  not  wise  in  their  own  conceits,  but 
truly  wise." 

No,  the  Bible  is  not  all  true ;  but  neither  is  it  all  false. 
It  cannot  all  be  accepted,  unless  one  is  willing  to  shut 
his  eyes,  and  not  only  trample  upon  his  own  reason  and 
intelligence,  but  also  upon  the  biblical  scholarship  of  the 
world.  But  much  of  it  can  be  accepted,  and  must  be 
accepted,  unless  we  are  willing  to  violate  every  principle 
of  correct  literary  and  moral  judgment,  and  deeply  injure 
ourselves  and  mankind. 

Probably  there  is  no  truer  conception  of  the  Bible  than 
as  a  gold  mine — a  gold  mine  inestimably  rich — yet  a 
mine  still.  There  are  quartz  and  earth  in  no  small  meas- 
ure mixed  with  the  gold,  as  in  all  mines ;  but  there  is  also 
gold — true  gold  of  God,  very  precious — mixed  plentifully 
with  the  quartz  and  the  earth.  Evidently,  then,  the  part 
of  rational  men  and  women  is,  neither  to  resort  to  the 


306  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

folly  on  the  one  hand  of  declaring  that  the  quartz  and 
earth  are  gold,  nor  yet  the  equal  folly  on  the  other  hand 
of  throwing  away  all,  and  declaring  there  is  no  gold, 
because  they  can  plainly  see  quartz  and  earth  with  the 
gold  ;  but  the  part  of  rational  men  and  women  surely  is  to 
delve  earnestly  in  the  mine,  casting  out,  without  hesita- 
tion, what  plainly  is  not  gold,  but  saving  and  treasuring 
up,  with  glad  appreciation  and  thankfulness,  rich  stores  of 
what  clearly  is  gold. 


LIST  OF  BOOKS 

TO  WHICH  READERS  ARE  REFERRED  FOR  FURTHER 
INFORMATION. 

Books  on  the  Bible  are  many.  They  are  written  from  many  different 
standpoints  and  with  widely  different  ends  in  view.  Many  are  based 
upon  competent  scholarship;  many  upon  bibhcal  theories  and  methods 
of  interpretation  which  are  outgrown,  and  which  competent  scholarship 
rejects.    Therefore  students  who  would  be  wise  must  rigidly  select. 

The  list  of  books  given  below  does  not  aim  to  be  exhaustive,  or  to 
cover  all  departments  of  biblical  knowledge,  or  to  include  all  the  valu- 
able books  in  any  single  department.  Its  aim  is  to  exclude  as  much  as 
to  include.  Its  purpose  is  simply  the  practical  one  of  naming  a  limited 
number  of  books  which  are  believed  to  be  the  best,  —  which  are  written 
by  masters,  and  which  are  calculated  to  be  of  the  greatest  possible  as- 
sistance to  readers  and  students  in  obtaining  a  trustworthy  and  modem 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  without  the  expenditure  of  unnecessary  time. 

Since  the  list  is  prepared  in  the  interest  of  modem  scholarship,  and 
with  such  a  practical  aim  in  view  as  has  been  described,  three  classes 
of  books  are  excluded,  namely:  (i)  Those  written  in  a  foreign  language. 
(2)  Scholastic  works,  or  works  of  technical  leaming  designed  not  for 
general  readers  and  students  but  for  biblical  specialists.  (3)  Books 
written  before  the  appearance  of  the  later  bibhcal  scholarship,  or,  which 
reject  its  conclusions,  —  that  is  to  say,  books  written  from  the  old  dog- 
matic standpoint. 

I.    THE  BIBLE  IN  GENERAL. 

1  The  Bible.  —  The  American  Standard  Edition  of  the  Revised  Version 

(T.  Nelson  and  Sons)  1901.  Printed  in  many  sizes  and  forms.  This 
is  by  far  the  best  English  Bible. 

2  Bible  Dictionaries  and  Encyclopedias. —  The  Encyclopcsdia  Bib- 

lica.  Edited  by  T.  K.  Cheyne  and  J.  S.  Black.  4  vols.  (A.  and  C. 
Black.)  A  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  Edited  by  James  Hastings.  5 
vols.  (Scribners.)  A  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  Edited  by  James 
Hastings.  i  vol.  (Scribners.)  TA^  Standard  Bible  Dictionary. 
EditedbyM.W.  Jacobus,    i  vol.    (Funk  and  Wagnalls.)    All  excellent. 


308  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Such  older  works  as  Kitto,  Wm.  Smith  and  McClintock  and  Strong 
represent  views  of  the  Bible  which  are  now  to  a  considerable  degree 
discredited.  The  New  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia.  12  vols.  (Funk 
and  Wagnalls.)  Excellent.  The  Jewish  Encyclopedia.  12  vols. 
(Funk  and  Wagnalls.)  Learned.  The  Encyclopedia  Britannica  con- 
tains many  excellent  articles  on  biblical  subjects. 

3  Beble  Handbooks.  —  Life  in  Palestine  when  Jesus  Lived.    By  J. 

Estlin  Carpenter.  (S.  S.  Ass'n.,  London.)  A  Primer  of  the  Bible. 
By  W.  H.  Bennett.  (Methuen.)  The  Cambridge  Companion  to 
the  Bible.  With  maps.  (Cambridge  University  Press.)  Helps  to  the 
Study  of  the  Bible.  (Oxford  University  Press.)  These  four  books  are 
full  of  information  about  the  Bible.  A  Wicket- Gate  to  the  Bible. 
A  "tiny  Introduction."  By  W.  C.  Gannett.  Answers  concisely 
and  luminously  (in  32  pages)  the  question:  What  is  the  Bible  in 
the  light  of  the  Higher  Criticism? 

4  Introductions  and  Commentaries.  —  Several  things  should  be 

said  about  Commentaries  and  "Introductions." 

(i)  As  a  rule  it  is  better  to  study  a  book  itself,  not  commentaries 
on  it. 

(2)  The  best  help  to  the  understanding  of  a  book  is  a  good 
"Introduction."  An  Introduction  properly  written  gives  us  a 
large  view,  —  a  survey  of  the  book  as  a  whole,  with  settings  and 
perspectives;  whereas  the  commentary  breaks  up  the  book  into 
bits  and  fragments,  and  is  likely  to  make  us  lose  the  large  essentials 
in  our  search  for  the  small  non-essentials. 

(3)  If  one  does  use  a  commentary  he  should  make  sure  before- 
hand that  it  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  the  most  recent  and 
approved  scholarship.  Commentaries  written  more  than  twenty 
years  ago  are  likely  to  be  seriously  misleading. 

(4)  For  a  commentary  to  be  worth  using  to-day,  it  should  be 
based  upon  the  Revised  Version,  The  Bible  for  Learners.  By  dis- 
tinguished Dutch  scholars.  3  vols.  (2  vols.  O.  T. ;  i  vol.  N.  T.) 
(Roberts  Bros.)  Goes  over  the  entire  Bible  interpreting  all  its 
parts  in  an  illuminating  way.  1878.  T/ie  Modern  Reader'' s  Bible. 
The  books  of  the  Bible  arranged  in  modern  literary  form,  with 
Introductions  and  brief  Notes.  By  R.  G.  Moulton.  (Macmillan.) 
One  large  volume  (also  published  in  a  series  of  little  volumes). 
Brings  out  with  remarkable  effect  the  literary  characteristics  of 
the  Bible.  The  New  Century  Bible.  General  Editor  W.  F. 
Adeney.     (New  York,  Frowde)  1904.    Each  book  of  the  Bible  in 


LIST  OF  BOOKS,  309 

a  small  volume  by  itself,  with  Introduction,  Maps  and  brief  Notes. 
Revised  Version.     For  persons  desiring  to  get  the  various  Bible 
books  in  convenient  form,  with  thoroughly  scientific  introductions 
and  commentaries,  this  work  is  unexcelled.     The  Cambridge  Bible 
for  Schools  and  Colleges.    General  Editor  J.  J.  S.  Perowne.    (Cam- 
bridge University  Press.)    Each  book  of  the  Bible  treated  in  a  single 
volume.    Similar  in  plan  to  the  New  Century  Bible.     The  Temple 
Bible.    (Similar  in  form  and  plan  to  the  "Temple  Shakespeare".) 
(J.    M.   Dent    &  Co.,   London;    Lippincott   Co.,   Philadelphia.) 
Each  book  of  the  Bible  edited  by  a  distinguished  scholar,  with 
Introduction  and  Notes,  and  printed  as  a  separate  volume.    Excel- 
lent.    The  Messages  of  the  Bible.    General  Editors  F.  K.  Sanders 
and  C.  F.  Kent.     12  vols.     (Scribners.)    The  subjects  of  the  vol- 
umes are :   I.   The  Messages  of  the  Earlier  Prophets;  II.   the  Later 
Prophets;    III.    Israel's   Lawgivers;    IV.     the   Prophetical   and 
Priestly  Historians;  V.  the  Psalmists;  VI.  the  Sages;  VII.  the 
Poets;   VIII.    the  Apocalyptic   Writers;   IX.   lesus  according  to 
the  Synoptics;  X.  lesus  according  to  John;  XI.  Paid;  XII.  the 
Apostles.     At  once  a  classification  and  a  paraphrase  of  the  prin- 
cipal teachings  of  the  Bible,  and  a  commentary  on  them.     The 
International  Critical  Commentary  on  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments.    General  Editors,  C.  A.  Briggs,  S.  R.  Driver  and  Alfred 
Plummer.    (Scribners)  1908.    A  separate  volume  for  each  book 
of  the  Bible.     15  vols,  ready.    Generally  accepts  the  Higher  Criti- 
cism.    Volumes  differ  somewhat  in  value.     Some  excellent.     The 
Polychrome  Bible.    General  Editor,  Paul  Haupt,  assisted  by  emi- 
nent biblical  scholars  of  Europe  and  America.     (Dodd,  Mead  & 
Co.)    New   Translation,    Illustrations,    and    Notes.      Shows    by 
means  of  different  colors  the  composite  character  of  the  various 
biblical  books  and  the  elements  or  "strata"  of  which  they  are  com- 
posed. Volumes  issued  on  Isaiah,  Leviticus,  Judges,  Psalms,  Ezekiel 
and  Joshua.     Others  to  follow.     Biblical  Introduction.    Old  Tes- 
tament by  W.  H.  Bennett;    New  Testament  by   W.  F.  Adeney. 
(Methuen)  1899.      Excellent.      The  Bible  of  To-day.     By  J.  W. 
Chadwick.  (Putnam.)     Lectures  on  the  Bible  of  the  Higher  Criti- 
cism.    A  good  digest.    1878-     Who  Wrote  the  Bible?     By  Washington 
Gladden.    (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.)    The  Evolution  of  a  Great 
Literature.     Natural  History  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scrip- 
tures.    By  Newton  M.  Mann.     (J.  H.  West  Co.,  Boston)   1905. 
The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible:  An  Account  of  the  Leading  Forms 


3IO  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF   THE   BIBLE. 

of  Literature  Represented  in  the  Sacred  Writings,  by  Richard  G. 
Moulton.  (Heath  &  Co.,  Boston)  1896.  Throws  great  new  light 
upon  the  Bible  as  Hterature.  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
with  Theology.  By  Andrew  D.  White.  2  vols.  (Appleton) 
1896.  Traces  in  a  masterly  manner  the  progress  (through  con- 
flict) of  rational  views  of  the  Bible,  Creation,  ^liracles,  etc.,  includ- 
ing the  growth  of  the  *' Higher  Criticism." 
6  Geogil\phy  of  Palestine .  —  The  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy 
Land.  (Excellent  Maps.)  By  Geo.  Adam  Smith.  (Hodder  and 
Stoughton)  1894.  The  best.  Sinai  and  Palestine.  By  Arthur  P. 
Stanley.  (Scribners).  Excellent.  Biblical  Geography  and  History. 
By  Charles  F.  Kent.  (Scribners)  191 1.  Traces  interestingly  the 
historic  associations  connected  with  Palestine  localities.  The 
Sacred  Sites  of  the  Gospels.  With  Illustrations,  Maps,  and  Plans. 
By  William  Sanday,  assisted  by  Paul  Waterhouse.  (Clarendon 
Press,  Oxford.)  Gives  good  descriptions  of  present  day  Pales- 
tine. Illustrations  particularly  fine.  Travel  and  Life  in  Pales- 
tine. A  "Young  People's  Excursion  through  the  Lands  of  the 
Bible."  By  J.  T.  Sunderland.  (S.  S.  Ass'n.  London)  1901.  Te^ii 
and  Testament:  A  Camping  Tour  in  Palestine.  By  Herbert  Rix. 
(Williams  and  Norgate)  1907.  Maps  and  Publications  of  the 
Palestine  Exploration  Fund.  London.  Numerous  and  excellent. 
Eilers^  Aths  of  S.  S.  Maps.  (A.  H.  Eilers,  St.  Louis.)  Pamphlet 
of  12  small  maps.     Cheap.     For  use  with  classes  or  in  private  study. 

n.    OLD  TESTAMENT. 

1  History.  —  History  of  Israel.  By  J.  Wellhausen,  tr.  (Kegan  Paul.) 
The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Fall  of  the  Jewish  State,  by  Abraham 
Kuenen,  3  vols.  (Willams  &  Norgate)  1874.  An  epoch  making 
work.  Not  yet  superseded.  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish 
Church.  By  Arthur  P.  Stanley.  3  vols.  (Murray.)  Somewhat 
conservative,  representing  the  transition  from  traditional  to  modern 
criticism,  but  remarkably  fertile  in  suggestion  and  charming  in 
style.  Old  Testament  History.  By  Henry  P.  Smith.  (Scribner's 
Sons)  1906.  An  able  work  covering  the  whole  ground  in  the  light 
of  advanced  scholarship.  The  Historical  Bible.  By  Charles  F. 
Kent.  (Scribners)  1908.  Vol.1.  The  Heroes  and  Crises  of  Early 
Hebrew  History.  Vol.  IL  The  Founders  and  Rulers  of  United 
Israel.      Four  more  vols,  completed.      Contains  selections  from  the 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  3II 

biblical  text,  with  introductions  and  comments.  Designed  par- 
ticularly as  a  series  of  text  books  for  colleges,  teachers'  training 
classes  and  adult  Bible  classes.  History  of  the  People  of  Israel.  By 
Ernest  Renan.  5  vols.  tr.  (Roberts  Bros.)  Learned,  picturesque, 
charming.  Highly  valuable  if  read  with  soberer  works.  History 
of  the  People  of  Israel,  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Destruction 
of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans.  Written  for  Lay  Readers.  By  C.  H. 
Cornill,  tr.  (Open  Court  Pub.  Co.  Chicago)  1898.  An  interesting 
and  reliable  short  history.  History  of  the  Jews,  from  the  Earliest 
Period  to  the  Present  Time.  By  H.  Graetz.  5  vols.  tr.  (Jewish 
Pub.  Society,  Phila.)  A  standard  work.  A  History  of  the  Hebrew 
{and  Jewish)  People,  from  the  Settlement  of  Canaan  to  End  of  the 
New  Testament  Times.  By  Chas.  F.  Kent  and  J.  S.  Riggs.  4  vols. 
(Scribners)  1897-1907.  Outlines  of  Biblical  History  and  Literature, 
from  the  Earhest  Times  to  200  A.D.  By  F.  K.  Sanders.  (Scrib- 
ners.) The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile.  By  Karl  Budde.  (Put- 
nam.) Radical  and  suggestive  regarding  the  origin  of  Israel's 
religion. 

2  Babylon,  Assyria,  and  Egypt.  —  A  History  of  the  Babylonians  and 

Assyrians.  By  Geo.  S.  Goodspeed,  (Scribners)  1902.  The  History 
of  Babylonia  and  Assyria.  By  Hugo  Winckler,  tr.  (Scribners) 
1907.  Babylonians  and  Assyrians:  Recent  Excavations  and  de- 
cipherment of  Inscriptions.  By  A.  V.  Hilprecht.  (Scribners.)  A 
History  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians.  By  James  H.  Breasted  (Scrib- 
ners) 1908. 

3  Introductions  to  the  Old  Testament.  —  The  Books  of  the  Old 

Testament:  A  short  Introduction.  By  J.  H.  Weatherall.  (S.  S. 
Ass'n.  London)  1902,  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old 
Testament.  By  S.  R.  Driver.  (Scribners)  1892.  Extended  and 
critical.  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament.  By  J.  E.  McFadyen. 
(Armstrong)  1904.  Non-technical  and  admirable.  The  Bible 
{Old  Testament)  for  Home  Reading.  With  Comments  and  Reflec- 
tions for  the  Use  of  Jewish  Parents  and  Children.  By  C.  G.  Monti- 
fiore.  2  vols.  (Macmillan)  1899.  The  best  parts  of  the  O.  T. 
books  selected  and  given  with  brief  explanatory  introductions- 
Excellent  for  Christian  home  reading,  as  well  as  Jewish. 

4  The  Hexateuch.  —  The  Documents  of  the  Hexateuch.   Translated 

and  Arranged  in  Chronological  Order,  with  Introductions  and 
Notes.  By  W.  A.  Addis.  (Putnam.)  The  Hexateuch  (Revised 
Version)  arranged  in  its  Constituent  Documents.    With  Introduc- 


3^2 


ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE   BIBLE. 


tions  and  Notes.  By  J.  E.  Carpenter  and  G.  Harford-Battersby. 
2  vols.  (Longmans,  Green  &  Co.)  1900.  For  persons  desiring  to 
make  a  critical  study  of  the  first  six  books  of  the  O.  T.  this  work 
and  the  preceding  by  Mr.  Addis  are  of  great  value.  Early  Hebrew 
Story.  A  Study  of  the  Origin  and  Value  of  the  Legends  of  Israel. 
By  John  P.  Peters.  (Putnam)  1907. 
6  Genesis.  —  The  Early  Narratives  of  Genesis.  By  H.  E.  Ryle.  (Mac- 
millan)  1892.  Shows  the  legendary  and  mythical  character  of  these 
narratives  and  their  connection  with  Assyria.  Legends  of  Genesis. 
By  Herman  Gunkel,  tr.  (Open  Court  Pub.  Co.,  Chicago.)  Throws 
much  light  upon  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis.  The  Seven  Tablets 
of  Creation;  or,  The  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  Legends  concerning 
the  Creation  of  the  World  and  of  Mankind.  Vol.  I,  Translations, 
etc.  Edited  by  L.  W.  King  of  the  British  Museum.  (Luzac  & 
Co.,  London)  1902. 

6  The  Psalms.  —  The  Praises  of  Israel.    An  Introduction  to  the  Study 

of  Psalms.  By  W.  T.  Davidson.  (C.  H.  Kelley,  London)  1892. 
The  Origin  and  Religious  Contents  of  the  Psalms.  By  T.  K.  Cheyne. 
rWhitaker,  New  York)  1892. 

7  The  Wisdom  Literature. —  The  Wisdom  Literature  of  the  Old 

Testament.  By  W.  T.  Davidson.  (C.  H.  Kelley,  London)  1903. 
The  Wise  Men  of  Israel  and  their  Proverbs.  By  C.  F.  Kent.  (Silver, 
Burdett  &  Co.,  Chicago.)  An  Introduction  to  the  Book  of  Pro- 
verbs and  the  history  of  proverbial  literature.  Studies  of  the  Book 
of  Job.  By  F.  M.  Peloubet.  (Scribners.)  The  Epic  of  the  Inner 
Life.  A  Translation  of  Job^  with  Introduction  and  Notes.  By 
G.  F.  Genung.  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.)  Shows  the  literary 
qualities  of  the  great  poem. 

8  Prophets  and  Prophecy.  —  The  Prophets  of  Israel  and  their  Place 

in  History.  By  W.  Robertson  Smith.  (Appleton)  1882.  The 
Prophets  and  Prophecy  in  Israel.  A  Historical  and  Critical  Inquiry. 
By  Abraham  Kuenen.  (Longmans,  Green  &  Co.)  1876.  The 
master  work  on  this  subject.  Messianic  Prophecy.  A  Critical 
Study  of  Messianic  Passages  in  the  Old  Testament.  By  Chas.  A. 
Briggs.    (Scribner's  Sons.)    Liberal  orthodox. 

III.    NEW  TESTAMENT. 

1  History. —  The  Jewish  People  in  the  Time  of  Christ.     By  Emil 
Schiirer.    5  vols.    (T.  &  T.  Clark.)  tr.    A  work  of  great  learning 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  313 

and  value.  History  of  the  New  Testament  Times.  By  Shailer 
Matthews.  (Macmillan)  1903.  A  History  of  the  New  Testavient 
Times.  {The  Times  of  Jesus,  2  vols.  1883.  The  Times  of  the 
Apostles,  2  vols.  1892.)  By  A.  Hausrath,  tr.  (Williams  and  Nor- 
gate.)  A  standard  work.  Judaism  and  Christianity:  the  Progress 
of  Thought  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New  Testament.  By 
C.  H.  Toy.    (Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  Boston)  1890. 

2  Introduction  and  Commentary.  —  An  Introduction  to  the  New 

Testament.  By  B.  W.  Bacon.  (Macmillan)  1905,  International 
Handbooks  to  the  New  Testament.  (Putnam)  1900-1907.  Vol.  I. 
The  Synoptic  Gospels.  By  Geo.  L.  Cary;  Vol.  II.  Thessalonians, 
Corinthians,  Galatians,  Rofnnns,  and  Philippians,  by  James  Drum- 
mond;  Vol.  III.  Hebrews,  Colossians,  Ephesians,  Philemon,  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  James,  Peter,  and  Jude.  By  Orello  Cone.  Vol.  IV. 
Acts,  Revelation,  John  (Gospel  and  Epistles).  By  H.  P.  Forbes. 
This  work  is  a  combined  Commentary  and  Introduction.  It  is  a 
product  of  the  best  and  most  advanced  scholarship.  Taken  all  in 
all  it  is  probably  the  best  New  Testament  Commentary. 

3  Jesus.  —  The  Sources  of  Our  Knowledge  of  the  Life  of  Jesus.    By 

Paul  Wernle.  (Philip  Green,  London)  1907.  Jesus  of  Nazareth: 
A  Historical  and  Critical  Survey  of  His  Life  and  Teaching.  By 
Etienne  Giran.  (S.  S.  Assn.,  London)  1907.  Brief,  popular.  T/z.* 
Life  of  Jesus.  By  Otto  Holtzman.  (Macmillan).  Large.  Excellent. 
The  Supremacy  of  Jesus.  An  Appreciation  of  the  Man  and  His 
Teaching.  By  Joseph  H.  Crooker.  (Am.  Unitarian  Ass'n.,  Boston) 
1904.  The  Carpenter  Prophet:  A  Study  of  the  Life  and  the  Ideals 
of  Jesus.  By  C.  W.  Pearson.  (H.  S.  Stone  &  Co.,  New  York) 
1902.  The  Prophet  of  Nazareth.  By  Nathaniel  Schmidt.  (Mac- 
millan) 1905.  A  masterly  work  of  reverent  critical  scholarship. 
Life  of  Jesus.  By  Ernest  Renan.  (Roberts  Bros.)  One  of  the 
most  fascinating  of  prose  poems.  The  History  of  Jesus  of  Nazara. 
By  Theodore  Keim,  6  vols.  (Williams  and  Norgate)  1876.  An 
able  and  exhaustive  work  of  hberal  yet  conservative  scholarship. 
A  Life  of  Jesus,  for  Young  People.  By  Howard  N.  Brown.  (Uni- 
tarian S.  S.  Society,  Boston)  1888.  Excellent  for  young  or  old. 
Jesus:  the  Story  of  His  Life  told  for  Children.  By  Florence  and 
Sarah  Gregg.  (S.  S.  Ass'n.,  London.)  Jesus  of  Nazareth:  His 
Life  and  the  Scenes  of  His  Ministry.  With  a  Chapter  on  the  Christ 
of  Art.  By  Wm.  E.  Barton.  (Pilgrim  Press,  Boston)  1903.  Chiefly 
valuable  for  its  fine  illustrations,  from  photographs,  etc.,  558  in 


314  ORIGIN  AND   GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

number.  The  Oriental  Christ.  By  P.  C.  Mozoomdar.  (G.  H. 
Ellis,  Boston.)  Christ  as  seen  by  a  sympathetic  Hindu.  History 
of  the  Dogma  of  the  Diety  of  Christ.  (From  man  to  God.)  By 
Albert  Reville,  tr.    (Williams  and  Norgate). 

4  The  Gospels. —  The  First  Three  Gospels:  their  Origin  and  Re- 
lations. By  J.  Estlin  Carpenter.  (S.  S.  Ass'n.,  London)  1890. 
The  Gospel  and  Its  Earliest  Interpretations.  A  Study  of  the  Teach- 
ing of  Jesus  and  its  Doctrinal  Transformations  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. By  Orello  Cone.  (Putnam.)  Gospel  Criticism  and  His- 
torical Christianity.  A  study  of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  Gospel  Canon 
during  the  second  century.  By  Orello  Cone.  (Putman.)  The 
Problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel:  a  Plain  Inquiry,  By  A.  Warschauer. 
(Philip  Green,  London)  1903.  A  clear  statement  of  reasons  for 
believing  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  not  written  by  John  the 
Disciple  of  Jesus. 

6  Paul.  —  Paul  the  Man,  the  Missionary  and  the  Teacher.  By  Orello 
Cone.  (Putnam.)  The  Gospel  of  Paul.  By  C.  C.  Everett.  (Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co.)  The  Influence  of  the  Apostle  Paul  on  the  Devel- 
opment of  Christianity.  (Hibbert  Lectures  of  1885.)  By  Otto 
Pfleiderer.    (Williams  and  Norgate.) 

6  Miscellaneous.  —  Historical  Geography  of  the  New  Testament. 
By  J.  R.  S.  Sterrett.  (Macmillan)  1903.  The  History  of  the 
Higher  Criticism  of  the  New  Testament.  By  Henry  S.  Nash. 
(Macmillan)  1901. 

IV.    APOCRYPHAL  LITERATURE. 

Introduction  to  the  Apocryphal  Books.  By  H.  Gunkel,  tr.  (Putnam) 
1908.  The  Apocrypha  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  Historical  Intro- 
ductions, a  Revised  Translation  and  Notes.  By  E.  C.  Bissell. 
(Scribner's  Sons)  1880.  Pseudepigrapha:  An  Account  of  certain 
Apocryphal  Writings  of  the  Jews  and  Early  Christians.  By  W.  J. 
Deane.  (T.  &  T.  Clark.)  Books  which  Influenced  our  Lord  and 
His  Apostles:  being  a  Critical  Review  of  Apocalyptic  Jewish  Litera- 
ture. By  J.  E.  H.  Thompson.  (T.  and  T.  Clark)  1891.  Apocryphal 
and  Apocalyptic  Books.  Translated  (with  Introductions  and  Notes) 
by  R.  H.  Charles.  The  Book  of  Enoch,  from  the  Ethiopic.  (Clar- 
endon Press)  1893.  The  Assumption  of  Moses,  from  the  Latin. 
(A.  &  C.  Black)  1897.  Book  of  the  Secrets  of  Enoch,  from  the 
Sclavonic.    (Clarendon  Press)  1896.    The  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  from 


LIST  OF  BOOKS.  315 

the  Ethiopic.  (Black)  1900.  The  Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  from 
the  Syriac.  (Dublin  University.)  The  Book  of  Jubilees,  or  Little 
Genesis,  from  the  Ethiopic.  (Black)  1902.  Legends  of  the  Old 
Testament,  from  the  Talmud  and  Other  Sources.  By  S.  Baring- 
Gould.  (Macmillan.)  Shows  how  large  a  body  of  legends  is  in 
existence  regarding  Old  Testament  characters,  arising  from  Jewish 
and  Mohammedan  Sources.  The  Apocryphal  Life  of  Jesus,  or 
The  Life  of  Jesus  according  to  Extra-Canonical  Sources.  By 
Bernard  Pick.  (J.  B.  Alden,  New  York)  1887.  The  Gospel  Ac- 
cording to  the  Hebrews.  By  E.  B.  Nicholson.  (Kegan  Paul)  1879. 
Apocryphal  Gospels,  and  other  Documents  relating  to  the  History 
of  Christ.  By  B.  Cowper  Harris.  (Williams  and  Norgate)  1881. 
Translations  from  the  Greek,  Latin,  Syriac,  etc.,  with  Notes. 

V.    CANON,  TEXT,  VERSIONS. 

The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  By  E.  H.  Ryle.  (Macmillan.)  Canon 
and  Text  of  the  Old  Testament.  History  of.  By  F.  Buhl,  tr.  (T. 
and  T.  Clark.)  Critical.  The  Canan  of  the  Bible.  By  Samuel 
Davidson.  (Thomas  Whittaker.)  History  of  the  Formation  of 
the  Canon.  Same,  abridged,  appears  as  the  article  "Canon"  in 
the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica.  The  New  Testament  and  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  By  E.  C.  Moore.  (Macmillan)  1904.  A  brief  account 
of  the  growth  of  the  New  Testament  Canon.  Handbook  to  the 
Textual  Criticism  of  the  New  Testament.  (Text,  Manuscripts  and 
Versions.)  By  Frederick  G.  Kenyon,  British  Museum.  (Mac- 
millan) 1901.  History  of  the  English  Bible.  By  B.  F.  Westcott. 
(Macmillan.)  The  Ancestry  of  our  English  Bible:  An  Account  of 
Bible  Versions,  Texts,  and  Manuscripts.  By  Ira  M.  Price.  (S.  S. 
Times  Co.,  Phila.)  1907. 

VI.  NON-CHRISTIAN  AND  NON-JEWISH  RELIGIONS 
AND  SACRED  BOOKS. 
1  General.  —  The  Place  of  Christianity  among  the  Religions  of  the 
World.  By  J.  Estlin  Carpenter.  (Philip  Green,  London)  1904. 
Religion  and  Historic  Faiths.  By  Otto  Pfleiderer.  (B.  W.  Huebsch, 
Chicago)  1908.  Lectures  on  the  Great  Religions  of  the  World. 
The  History  of  Religion  to  the  Spread  of  Universal  Religions.  By 
C.  P.  Tiele.  (Houghton  and  Mifflin.)  Treats  briefly  the  religions 
of  the  Chinese,  ancient  Egyptians,  Hindus,  Persians,  Arabians, 


3l6  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Greeks,  Romans,  and  Germans.  Ten  Great  Religions.  By  James 
Freeman  Clarke.  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.)  1871.  In  a  few 
matters  not  abreast  of  present  scholarship,  yet  still  of  great  interest 
and  value. 

2  Religions  of  Egypt  and  Assyria.  —  The  Religion  of  Ancient  Egypt. 

By  Le  Page  Renouf  (The  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1879.)  (Scribners.) 
History  of  the  Egyptian  Religion.  By  C.  P.  Tiele.  (Triibner.) 
The  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria.    By  Morris  Jastrow.    (Ginn 

&  Co.)  1898.  Babel  and  Bible.  Lectures  by  Frederick  Delitzsch 
on  the  influence  of  Assyriology  on  biblical  knowledge.  (Putnam) 
1903.  The  Religion  of  the  Semites.  By  W.  Robertson  Smith. 
(Appleton.)     Revised  ed.    1894.     Throws  great   light  upon  the 

relations  between  the  Hebrew  religion  and  the  religions  of  the 
other  Semitic  peoples. 

3  Religions  of  the  Orient.  —  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.    Translated 

by  various  scholars.  (Oxford  Press.)  More  than  forty  vols.  In- 
dispensable to  all  who  would  make  first  hand  studies  of  the  Religions 
of  the  Orient.  The  Religions  of  India.  By  E.  W.  Hopkins.  (Ginn 
&  Co.)  1895.  Excellent.  The  Rig-Veda:  the  Oldest  Literature 
of  the  Hindus.  By  Adolf  Kaegi,  tr.  (Ginn  &  Co.)  1886.  Brah- 
manism  and  Hinduism.  By  M.  Monier-Williams.  Fourth  Ed. 
(Murray)  1891.  Large.  Buddhism  in  its  Connection  with  Brah- 
manism  and  Hinduism,  and  in  its  Contrast  with  Christianity,  by 
M.  Monier-Williams  (Murray)  1890.  Large.  Buddhism:  Its 
History  and  Literature,  by  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids.  (Putnam's  Sons) 
1896.  Moderate  in  size.  Excellent.  Buddhism  in  Translations. 
Extensive  extracts  from  Buddhist  sacred  writings.  Translated 
from  the  Pali.  By  H.  C.  Warren.  (Harvard  University)  1896. 
Perhaps  no  other  single  volume  gives  so  complete  an  idea  of  the 
Buddhist  Sacred  Writings  according  to  the  Southern  Canon.  Zoro- 
aster: the  Prophet  of  Ancient  Iran.  By  A.  V.  W.  Jackson.  (Mac- 
millan.)  Perhaps  the  best  life  of  Zoroaster  in  English.  The 
Koran.  Best  translations  into  English  those  E.  H.  Palmer  (2  vols. 
Oxford,  1880),  and  J.  H.  Rodwell.  (London,  1871.)  Sale's  ver- 
sion is  still  useful,  especially  his  introduction  and  commentary. 


INDEX. 


Acts,  Paul  and  the  Book  of,  136-143 
American  Revised  Version,  234-236 
Amos,  the  Book  of,  loi 
Anonymous  character  of  many  bib- 
lical books,  48-50 
Antiochus  Epiphanes,  188 
Apocalypse.     See  Revelation. 
Apocrypha,  meaning  of  word,  173 
Apocrypha,  the  Old  Testament,  167, 
168,  173-189;  the  New  Testament, 
168-172 
Apocryphal    writings,  value  of  the, 

176-178 
Aramaic  language,  202-204 
Armenian  Version  of  Bible,  224 
Arnold  Matthew,  quoted,  32 
Authorized  Version  of  Bible,  232-236 
Authorship   of    Bible   books,   uncer- 
tainty as  to,  48-51 
Avesta,  or  Zend-Avesta,  the,   i,  25, 
26 


B 


Babylon,  the  captivity  in,  as  related 
to  the  religious  evolution  of  Israel, 
254,  255 

Babylon,  the  place  where  the  Priestly 
Document  was  formed,  75 

Baptism,  the  rite  of,  18 

Baruch,  the  Book  of,  186,  187 

Bel  and  the  Dragon,  187 

Bible,  the,  as  a  sacred  book,  i  ;  con- 
flict of  science  with,  14,  15;  and 
other  sacred  books,  similarity  be- 
tween, 17-33;  as  literature,  44-58 ; 
as  the  creator  of  religion  and 
morals,   291-293;    compared  with 


other  books,  295,  296;  permanent 
value  of,   297-306;   as  a  book  of 
practical  religion,  300;  as  a  book 
of  spiritual  consolation  and  quick- 
ening,   301-303;     "all    or    none," 
303-306 ;  translations  and  revisions 
of,  222-238 
"  Bishops' "  Bible,  the,  231 
Bixby,  James  T.,  quoted,  i4,  15 
Books  of  the  Bible,  non-chronological 

arrangement  of,  51-57 
Briggs,  Chas.  A.,  quoted,  48,  70,  258 
Buddha    and    Christ,    similarity    of 

legends  concerning,  20,  21 
Buddhism  and  Christianity,  similari- 
ties between,  20,  21 
Buddhist  and  Christian  canons,  simi- 
larities as  regards  their  formation, 
200,  201 
Buddhists,  Sacred  Book  of  the,  28, 29 


Canons  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments, formation  of,  164-172,  190- 
201 

Captivity,  the,  as  related  to  the  re- 
hgious    evolution   of    Israel,   254, 

255 
Chadwick,  J.  W.,  cited,  50 
Childish     representations     of     God 

found  in  the  Bible,  278 
Chinese  sacred  books,  i,  26,  27 
Christ    and    Buddha,    similarity    of 

legends  concerning,  20,  21 
Christianity,    close    relation    of,    to 

Judaism,  175-178 
Christianity,  preparation  for,  in  the 


3i8 


INDEX. 


apocalyptic  and  other  apocryphal 
literature,  174-178,  180,  181 

Chronicles,  the  Books  of,  89 

Chronological  order  of  the  Bible 
books,  51-57 

Church,  division  in  the  early  Chris- 
tian, 138 

Circumcision,  18 

Civilization  as  related  to  the  Bible, 
298,  299 

Clodd,  Edward,  cited,  32 

Colossians,  Epistle  to  the,  150,  151 

Compilations,  many  books  of  the 
Bible  are,  45-50 

Composite  character  of  many  of  the 
biblical  books,  45-48 

Confucius,  the  Chinese  sacred  books 
of,  I ;  teachings  of,  26,  27 

Contradictions  in  the  Bible,  248-272 

Corinthians,  First  and  Second  Epis- 
tles to  the,  146,  147 

Cross,  the,  18 

Curtis,  T.  E.,  cited,  206,  207 


Daniel,  the  Book  of,  100,  180 

Daniel,  additions  to,  187 

Dates,  uncertainty  of,  in  the  Bible, 
48-51 

David,  as  related  to  the  religious 
progress  of  Israel,  253,  254 

David,  Rhys,  cited,  20,  21 

Deuteronomy,  the  Book  of,  as  docu- 
ment "  D,"  72,  73.  See  Penta- 
teuch. 

Dispersion,  Jews,  of  the,  176,  178 
(note). 

Documents  of  the  Pentateuch,  de- 
scribed, 70-79 

Documents,  the  earliest  in  the  syn- 
optic Gospels,  121 

Douai  translation  of  the  Bible,  the, 
224,  231,  232 

Dragon,  Bel  and  the,  187 

Driver,  S.  R.,  cited,  45,  72,  117 


Ecclesiastes,  the  Book  of,  115,  116 
Ecclesiasticus,  the  Book  of,  185,  186 


Egyptian  Religion,  Christianity  and 
Judaism,  21,  22 

Elohistic  document  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, 71,  72 

Enemies   and  friends   of  the  Bible, 

English    translations    of   the    Bible, 

226-238 
Enoch,  the  Book  of,  180 
Ephesians,  Epistle  to  the,  147,  150 
Epistles  of  Paul,  144-153 
Epistles,  the  non-Pauline,  154-160 
Errors  of  copyists  of  Scripture  manu- 
scripts, 210,  211,  215-219 
Errors,  scientific,  in  the  Bible,  275 
Esdras,  the  First  and  Second  Books, 

179-181 
Essenes,  176 
Esther,  the  Book  of,  92 
Esther,  the  rest  of  the  chapters  of, 

183  . 
Evolution,  religious,  traceable  in  the 

Bible,  239-257,  299 
Exaggerations  in  the  Bible,  276-278 
Excluded  Books  (excluded  from  the 

Old  and  New  Testaments),  163- 

172 
Exile,  the  period  of  the,  40,  41 
Exodus.     See  Pentateuch. 
Ezekiel,  the  Book  of,  100 
Ezra,  the  Book  of,  91 


Fourth  Gospel.    See  John. 


Galatians,  Epistle  to  the,  147 
Genesis.     See  Pentateuch. 
"Geneva"  Bible,  the,  231 
Gladden,  Washington,  cited,  48 
God,  Progress  in  the  conception  of, 
240 ;    childish    representations   of, 
278;   morally  degrading   represen- 
tations of,  278-282 
Gospels,  contrasts  between  the  Syn- 
optics and  the  Fourth,  128  ;  contra- 
dictions   in,    269-272 ;     legendary 
element   in,    131-133;    origin    and 
character  of,  1 17-135 


INDEX. 


319 


«Great"Bible,  the,  231 

Greek  text  of  the  New  Testament, 
202-204,  215-221 

Greek  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 215-221 


H 


Habakkuk,  the  Book  of,  103 

Haggai,  the  Book  of,  103 

Hagiographa,  the,  192,  193 

Hebrew  land,  34-36 

Hebrew  people,  origin  and  history 
of,  36-43 

Hebrew  people,  early  low  condition 
of  their  civilization  and  religion, 
240-250,  253 

Hebrew  language,  202-214 

Hebrews,  Epistle  to  the,  154,  155 

Hexateuch,  the,  74  (note  2).  See 
Pentateuch. 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  cited,  19,  30 

Hindus,  sacred  books  of  the,  23-25 

Historical  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, 85 

Historical  mistakes  in  the  Bible,  274, 

275 

History  and  legend,  Hebrew,  80-92 

Hosea,  the  Book  of,  loi 

Human  sacrifices  among  the  He- 
brews, 243,  244 


Immortality,  growth  of  belief  in,  244- 

246 
Incarnations,  divine,  18 
Inculcation  of  what  is  wrong  in  the 

Bible,  281-283 
Infallibility    of   the    Bible,    258-287 

doctrine    of,    not   found    in    Bible 

260-265 ;  doctrine  of,  an  enemy  to 

virtue,  286 
Infidelity,  how  men  are  driven  into, 

284 
Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  288-296 
Interpretation   Bible,   false  methods 

of,  11-16 
Isaiah,  the  Book  of,  97 


James,  Epistle  of,  155,  156 

Jehovah,  spelling  of  word,  68  (note), 

Jehovistic  document  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, the,  70,71 

Jeremiah,  the  Book  of,  99 

Jerome,  Saint,  223 

Jesus  as  the  greatest  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  256,  257 

Jesus  as  a  child  of  his  age,  175-178 

Jesus  and  his  Gospel,  1 19-135 

Jesus  the  Son  of  Sirach,  the  Wisdom 
of,  185,  186 

Jews,  the.  Origin  and  History  of,  36- 

43 

Job,  the  Book  of,  107-110 

Joel,  the  Book  of,  loi 

John  (the  Fourth  Gospel),  127-131 

John,  First,  Second,  and  Third  Epis- 
tles of,  158,  159 

Jonah,  the  Book  of,  102 

Joshua,  the  Book  of,  74  (note  2),  Zd 

Judaism,  close  relation  of,  to  Chris- 
tianity, 175-178 

Jude,  Epistle  of,  159,  160,  180 

Judges,  the  Book  of,  87 

Judith,  the  Book  of,  182 


King  James'  Version,  232-236 
Kings,  the  Books  of,  88 
Koran,  the,  i,  29 


Lamentations,  the  Book  of,  99 
Languages  of  the  Bible,  202-204 
Lao-tse,  the  Chinese  Sacred  Book 

of,  I 
Latin,  the  Bible  in,  222-224 
Law,  the,  191 

Legend  and  History,  Hebrew,  80-92 
Legendary  element  in  the   Gospels, 

131-133 
Letourneau  on  Science  and  the  Bible, 

15 
Levitical    law,    the,    not    given    by 

Moses,  53-56 
Leviticus.    See  Pentateuch. 


320 


INDEX. 


Literary  value  of  the  Bible,  297,  298 
Lost  books  of  the   Old  Testament, 

164,  165 
Lost  books  of  the  New  Testament, 

169 
Luther  and  the  Bible,  225 


M 


Maccabees,   the    First    and    Second 

Books  of,  187-189 
Maccabeus,  Judas,  188,  189 
Malachi,  the  Book  of,  104,  174 
Manen,  W.  C.  van.     His  claim  that 

no  New  Testament  Epistles  were 

written  by  Paul,  153 
Manuscripts,  Old  Testament,  204,  205 
Mark,  the  Gospel  of,  1 21-126 
Martineau,  James,  cited,  161,  162 
Massorites,  the,  208,  209 
Matthew,  the  Gospel  of,  121-126. 
"  Matthew's  "  Bible,  231 
Messiahs  found  in  other  sacred  books, 

Micah,  the  Book  of,  103 

Middle  Ages,  the  Bible  during,  225 

Miracles,   common    to    most    sacred 

books,  19 
Mistakes,  historic,  in  the  Bible,  274- 

275 
Modern    Reader's   Bible,   Moulton's, 

238 
Mohammedans,  Sacred  Book  of  the, 

I,  29 

Monotheism,  progress  of  Israel  to, 
from  polytheism,  240-244 ;  the 
Bible  the  parent  of,  299,  300 

Moral  and  religious  evolution  trace- 
able in  the  Bible,  239-257 

Moses,  not  the  author  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, 59-79 

Moses :  Progress  of  Religion  from 
Moses  to  Uavid,  253,  254 

Moulton's  Bible  for  Modern  Readers, 
238 

Miiller,  F.  Max,  cited,  13,  19,  22,  23 


N 


Nahum,  the  Book  of,  103 
Nehemiah,  the  Book  of,  91 


New  Testament,  how  its  books  at* 
tained  their  sacredness,  8;  non- 
chronological  arrangement  of  its 
books,  56-58;  what  is  it?  119,  120; 
lost  books  of,  169-172 

New  Testament  canon,  scriptures 
outside  of  the,  168 

New  Testament  period  of  Jewish 
history,  the,  42,  43,  256 

Newton,  Heber,  cited,  62 

Noyes,  Geo.  R.,  translation  of  the 
Bible  by,  237 

Numbers,  the  Book  of,  See  Penta- 
teuch. 


Obadiah,  the  Book  of,  102 

Old  Testament,  how  it  attained  its 
sacredness,  T,  %\  origin  and  char- 
acter of  its  books,  44-118;  lost 
books,  164,  165 


Palestine,  description  of,  34-36 
Paul,  the  Apostle,  a  sketch,  136-140 
Paul  and  the  Book  of  Acts,  136-143 
Paul,  the  Epistles  of,  144-153 
Pentateuch,  the,  dates  of  books,  78  ; 

was  it   written   by  Moses.""    59-68; 

evidences  of  a  later  hand,  64;   its 

composite  nature  and  origin,  69-79 ; 

the  four  documents  of,  united,  76 
Permanent  value  of  the  Bible,  297- 

306 
Persians,  Sacred  Book  of  the,  25,  26 
Peter,  First  and  Second  Epistles  of, 

156-158 
Pfleiderer,  Otto,  cited,  56 
Pharisees,  176 

Philemon,  Epistle  to,  152,  153 
Philippians,  Epistle  to  the,  150 
Poetical  Books  of  the  Old  Testament, 

106-118 
Poetry,  Hebrew,  106-118 
Polychrome  Bible,  the,  237 
Polygamy  sanctioned  in  the  Bible,  9 
Polytheism  among  the  Hebrews,  240- 

244 
Predictive  element  in  Old  Testament 

prophecy,  95, 96 


INDEX. 


321 


Price,  Ira  A.  "  The  Ancestry  of  Our 

English  Bible,"  238 
Priestly  document  of  the  Pentateuch, 

73-76 
Priestly  period  in  Jewish  history,  41, 

42, -254-256   ,       ^      ,.   . 
Progress,  moral  and  religious,  trace- 
able in  the  Bible,  239-257 
Prophecy,  Hebrew,  93-105 
Prophetical  books  of  the  O.  T.,  93- 

105 
Prophetic  period  in   Jewish   history, 

39,  40,  254 
"  Prophets,  The,"  when  added  to  the 

Canon,  192 
Protestant  Reformation,  the,  and  the 

Bible,  225 
Proverbs,  the  Book  of,  113-115 
Psalms,  the  Book  of,  110-113 
Pseudonymous  character  of  some  of 

the  Bible  books,  49,  50 


R 


Readings,  various,  of  the  Greek  Text, 

219-221 
Reformation,  the  Protestant,  and  the 

Bible,  225 
Religious  evolution  traceable  in  the 

Bible,  239-257 
Revelation,   the    Book  of,    160-163, 

180 
Revelation,  289-291 
Revised  Version,  the,  233-237 
Revisions  of  the  Bible,  222-238 
Rig- Veda,  hymns  from  the,  23-24 
Romans,  Epistle  to  the,  145,  146 
Ruth,  the  Book  of,  88 


Sacred  books  of  the  world,  1-33 
Sacred  books  which  grow  out  of  the 
life  of  a  people,  3 ;  which  originate 
in  a  man,  4,  5 ;  origin  of,  1-8 ;  tol- 
erate no  rivals,  1 1 ;  similarities  be- 
tween the  Bible  and  others,  17-33; 
differences  between,  31 
Sacrifice,  animal  and  human,  among 
the  Hebrews,  241-244 


Sacrifices,  18 

Sadducees,  176 

Samuel,  the  Books  of,  88 

Satan,  rise  of  belief  in,  246,  247 

Science,  conflict  of,  with   the  Bible, 

14,  15 
Scientific  errors  in  the  Bible,  275 
Sclavonic  Version  of  Bible,  225 
Semitic  Tribes  from   which  the  He- 
brews Sprung,  253 
Septuagint,  the,  178,  222 
Slavery  sanctioned  in  the  Bible,  10 
Smith,  W.   Robertson,  cited,  46,  48, 

63,  207,  208 
Solomon,  the  Song  of,  116-118 
Solomon,  the  Wisdom  of,  184,  185 
Song  of   the  Three    Holy   Children, 

187 
Susanna,  the  History  of,  187 
Synoptic  Gospels,  the,  1 19-126 
Synoptics    and    the    Fourth   Gospel, 
compared,  1 28-1 31 


Ten  Commandments,  different  forms 
of,  268,  269 

Testaments,  The  Historical  Gap  be- 
tween the  Two,  173,  174 

Text  of  the  Old  Testament,  its  for- 
mation  and  preservation,  202-214 

Text  of  the  New  Testament,  its  for- 
mation and  preservation,  202-204, 
215-221 

Thessalonians,  First  and  Second 
Epistles  to  the,  151 

Theile,  C.  P.,  cited,  25 

Timothy,  First  and  Second  Epistles 
to,  151,  152 

Titus,  Epistle  to,  152 

Tobit,  the  Book  of,  181,  182 

Translations  of  the  Bible,  222-238 

Tripitaka,  the,  i,  28 

Twentieth  Century  New  Testament, 
the,  238 

Tyndale  and  his  translation  of  the 
Bible,  227-231 


Value  of  the  Bible,  the  permanent, 
297-306 


^22 


INDEX. 


Van  Manen.     See  Manen 
Vedas,  the,  i ;  hymns  from  the,  23,  24 
Version,  the  Authorized,  232-236 
Version,  the  Revised,  233-237 
Vowels,  the  Hebrew  language  written 

without,  205-208 
Vulgate,  the,  223,  224 


W 


Weiss,  John,  cited,  15 

Widows  burned  on  the  funeral  pile 

of  their  husbands,  as  result  of  text 

of  Vedas,  9 


Wisdom  literature  of  the  Hebrews 

184,  255 
Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  Son  of  Siraca. 

the,  185,  186 
Wisdom  of  Solomon,  Book  of   the, 

184,  185 
Wycliffe  and  his  translation  of   the 

Bible,  226,  227,  230 


Zechariah,  the  Book  of,  103 
Zend-Avesta.     See  Avesta 
Zephaniah,  the  Book  of,  103 
Zoroaster,  religion  of,  25,  26 


